


Fighting Shadows

by Kharon



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Iwagakure | Hidden Stone Village, Konohagakure | Hidden Leaf Village, Ninja Politics, Original Character(s), Post-Chapter 699 (Naruto), Post-Fourth Shinobi War, kunoichi - Freeform, ninja being ninja, seriously if the whole ninja business isn't for you this fic won't be either, there will be pairings but they won't be the focus of the story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2019-11-05 01:27:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17909411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kharon/pseuds/Kharon
Summary: For better or for worse, they have survived a war. The last war in their lifetime, or so they all had hoped. Now however, with a former kage dead and a current kage accused of her murder, another war seems to be brewing in the whispers and rumors in the streets of Konohagakure, where the people demand a life for a life.[Canon-compliant until manga chapter 699 / Shippuuden episode 479, ignores chapter 700 and Boruto.]





	1. Part 1: Chapter 1 - The Murder

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was my 2018 NaNoWriMo project, a story that I always wanted to write and never got around to. In retrospect that's a good thing, as the years spent planning it definitely improved the quality of the plot. 
> 
> Everything will be a bit different from the usual here. In this story the main characters will be the side characters. You'll see them of course: Naruto, Sakura, Kakashi, Gaara and definitely some of the Rookie 9, but they won't be POV characters. It's not their story, or not only their story at least. The people driving the plot are other guys this time, from other villages too – because all of the Hidden Villages are amazing, and there's more to the Naruto Universe than Konoha, thankfully.
> 
> There will be 5 main characters who'll all be introduced in the first part of the story. They'll meet and interact and their POVs will often compliment each other, giving you, the reader, the advantage of maybe knowing in advance what will happen... or maybe not. 
> 
> Expect lots of worldbuilding, politics and original characters.

_Something_ makes Shizuka look up from her papers. There is no visible change to the office or to the village she can see when she looks out of the windows. Iwagakure is still stone, forever stone, a view that doesn't please her as it should, but she resigned herself to her fate a year ago. Instead she focuses and closes her eyes, _feels_ the people around her.

Nothing. The village isn't any different. Shizuka sighs, relieved that there is no one in attendance to watch her paranoia unfold. She has a reputation, one she carefully cultured over years, but even as a kage there is only so much suspicion you can show inside your own village.

So she turns her gaze back to her documents, a trade contract with a merchant from Stone Country that spells disaster and a dispute over some land in a town up north the daimyo forwarded her because they're shinobi brothers and he can't be bothered to care enough to send someone to settle the matter.

The former is easily handled, simply because the lady's demands are atrocious – as she must have known, hoping to haggle them down to better terms over the next few months. They always like to forget that while her family has produced quite a few ninja, they were originally merchants. Her father was the financial advisor of both the daimyo and the Tsuchikage at some point, she learnt her numbers young.

With the brothers she isn't sure how to proceed, however. There is no will from the father. According to Iwa Law the older sibling inherits over the younger, but since their family is a ninja clan and there is precedent for both the father and grandfather inheriting over their older siblings by virtue of holding the higher rank, both their claims are valid. Shizuka can see why the Earth Daimyo wanted to get rid of the case. Shared ownership of the clan compounds is out of the question with how vigorously they are fighting over it – she has no intention of leading them to "fight it out" and having to strip the survivor of their rank for kinslaying. It's not worth losing two good ninja over.

She'll have to go herself. There is a sister also, second born. Shizuka has half a mind to tell the men to get it together and slap the inheritance on her simply for the issue taking up a day of her schedule. The girl was at least sensible enough to not join in their fighting, she'll definitely do if push comes to shove.

A scrawled note later she has pushed that meeting into her only free day next week. With a few well-placed _shunshin_ she'll cut the journey in half and be back to a nobody-dare-interrupt-me Friday afternoon. Keiji wanted to see the autumn leaves again, so that's what they'll do. Maybe Seiji has night shift that day, then they'll make it a family trip.

Her head shoots up two seconds before Kitao forms himself out of the floor of her office.

“Tsuchikage-sama!” His eyes are blazing, cheeks red. It makes Shizuka sit up straight and push her papers back on the desk.

“Report,” she orders, waving a hand impatiently and wondering again when the day will come when the members of her personal guard will drop their stilted formality and treat her more like a fellow soldier and less like an icon with a heavy robe and a silly hat.

“There was…” He hesitates for an instant – it's then that she becomes really alarmed. "There was an incident some ten miles from the border less than two hours ago. We're waiting on confirmation from Miyagawa."

Shizuka looks at him. Blue eyes into brown ones. She stretches out her senses while they stare at each other, _pushes_ outwards, past the citizens of Iwagakure, over rock and stone, hills and trees, over thousands of people living inside Rock Country. She felt it from the middle of the continent when _he_ died. It was different then, and the stretch now drowns out her other senses, even when she is only searching for one person, a beacon of chakra, distinct enough to outshine any normal shinobi.

She only vaguely notices that she collapses, wouldn't have at all most likely if Kitao hadn't caught her. _Further_. Shizuka can't measure distance like this, but it's the farthest she's gone intentionally in years. Suddenly there are people, so many of them, assaulting her senses… then she crashes into her limit like it is a physical wall that throws her back.

“Meian-sama, can you hear me?” Kitao is talking to her, an assault of words he can't fully make sense of for a few seconds. _Nothing_. There was nothing. Emptiness echoes in her mind, the absence stark and unexpectedly painful.

“She's gone,” she mumbles to the silent room. Then Kitao helps her to her feet, which are slightly unsteady. A splitting headache is forming between her brows and focusing her eyes needs effort.

Miyagawa appears in a cloud of dust an instant later, hair tousled and eyes wild.

“Report.” Her voice holds an edge, a threat, and of course he notices – maybe this is part of why they treat her as formally as they do. These men are her personal guard, but they are no Black Ops.

"Their party was intercepted by hostiles about two hours ago from what we can tell. There is heavy damage to the surrounding terrain; a cliff collapsed, half a grove burned down. Two of her escort were critically injured by the time the border guards arrived, one was dead, the last is assumed to have been blown up. The Lady… the Lady Senju is dead, her body was almost incinerated by chakra-induced fire."

A heartbeat goes by. Then two. Three.

“Who?” Her voice sounds inhuman to her own ears, cold, _furious_.

“There were no obvious traces of the assaulters, Tsuchikage-same.” Miyagawa half-shrugs and holds out his empty hands helplessly. “Nobody saw anything. By the time our team arrived the battle was over, the only thing they could do was to stop her body from burning beyond any recognition and to provide first aid to the two wounded… the Grass border patrol was on the scene approximately six minutes after us, and shortly after one of the two injured died off right under the hands of their medic despite multiple attempts at reanimation. The other is still in critical condition.”

 _The bitch is dead_ , Shizuka thinks. From age nine she'd thought that she'd rejoice at the knowledge. Now she knows that she doesn't. Instead there is only grief, sharp and bitter.

“Kitao,” she orders, turning towards said guard, who looks at her with less fear than she expected. “Go get me the Jounin Commander. Immediately.”

He sinks into the ground without another word and leaves silence behind.

“You know how this looks, right?”

“Yes, Tsuchikage-sama,” he says and bows low. “Okajima-dono realized, too. Everyone of the border guards is accounted for. The Kusa team encountered their squad while they were trying to keep the two wounded alive. There was no hostility from anyone on their side and they didn't raise accusations either.”

When she doesn't respond he fidgets under her gaze and Shizuka is reminded that he is eighteen – younger than she was when she got pregnant and already with a war under his belt.

“The Hokage will know that it wasn't us.”

He is right of course. Hatake knows that if Shizuka could have killed Tsunade, she would have done so over a decade ago. Now there was no one left to fight over, however, and she admits that it made them both wiser women. Every victory won wouldn't have been one in the first place.

“In the end it's not his decision,” she tells the younger shinobi. Konoha's and Iwa's relationship, even now, is more strained than any other between the Great Nations.

Before he can reply the door opens and Kurotsuchi, niece of the Sandaime Tsuchikage, storms in with Kitao tailing behind her. She has already ruffled her feathers, young and proud and so so talented – if Onoki had only lived longer, if after all those wars it hadn't been a simple heart attack that had killed him, if he'd been there long enough to pass on the torch… but he _hadn't_ , and Shizuka had been left with the decision between leaving the hat to a gifted, powerful, arrogant nineteen-year-old girl or wearing it herself. _A few more years_ , that's all they would have needed.

She slighted the woman of her birthright. It was an insult Kurotsuchi won't forget and Shizuka can't take back.

“Tsunade is dead, I take?” The look in those black eyes challenges her. “They'll blame it on us. I knew-“

“Kurotsuchi.” Her tone is mild, more so then it is with anyone but her son, but it is a reprimand nonetheless. There is only so much she will stand for in front of her subordinates.

Order is restored in Rock Country, but Shizuka come out on top because she is anything but a fool. She knows that it is her control over the younger woman most of all that is needed for their government to remain stable. They can't have a coup, and a bruised ego will only cover a certain amount of dissent before people will question who should run the office.

“Tsuchikage-dono,” Kurotsuchi replies, teeth clenched, and bows stiffly.

And that is the thing: if she wasn't smart, if she didn't truly love Iwa as much as she does, Shizuka could have walked over her without a second thought – but she has them, every day, because what she loves most isn't her village.

Sometimes she thinks of Uzumaki Naruto and wonders if Hatake feels the same.

“Leave us.”

They don't need to be told twice, and suddenly the two dark-haired women are alone in the Tsuchikage's office. It loosens the tense atmosphere somewhat, as Kurotsuchi is more amendable if there is nobody present to watch them interact.

“It wasn't you?” Her voice is without malice, the question fuelled by simple curiosity. It's well-known that Tsunade and Shizuka can't – couldn't – stand each other, though the reason for it is a secret the elder took to the grave with her and the younger will too, if she has any say in the matter.

“No, it wasn't me,” Shizuka answers and sits down heavy in her chair. She has seen death, has raged and cried and mourned those she lost. This is different.

 _Guilt_. That is what she feels, because _you wanted her dead_ , _you told her to finally bite the dust_ , _you hated her just because you could_. The thing with great ninja is always that those surrounding them are the ones most convinced of their invincibility. Shizuka wished Tsunade dead many times, told it to her face on occasions, knew that she could be killed, but still never expected it to happen.

“I thought she was almost immortal.” Kurotsuchi admits it honestly, with a frown on her face that makes the older woman suppress a bitter laugh. “She was cut in half and put herself back together, for fuck's sake.”

“Decapitation, or at least that's how I would have done it. Contrary to whatever people say, her healing ability was unlike that of a jinchuuriki. Theirs is subconscious, hers was not. She needed to actively make her chakra react, force her cells to regenerate,” she explains, thoughts drifting to what little fighting she saw from Senju Tsunade. “Sever the connection between her brain and the rest of her body and there is nothing she can do… a high enough voltage to short circuit her brain would have done, too, it would've been a matter of timing. If she knew you were going to do it she could have healed herself in time. I know that she once regenerated her neck around a sword that was supposed to behead her.”

And what a truly frightening thought it is, to behead a woman who grabs your sword halfway through her neck, heals the gaping hole you cut and then proceeds to pull out your sword and stab you in the heart with it.

Kurotsuchi has the good sense to shudder.

“So you want me to go there and do damage mitigation?” By the gods, sometimes she sounds like a petulant child.

“Do you want me to send Himaru instead?” she retorts, and has the pleasure of watching the girl's mouth snap shut immediately. If there is one thing that rivals Kurotsuchi's hate to being second to Shizuka, it is being second to Fushichou Himaru.

“He's _sixteen_!” she snaps, but reigns herself in before a snide remark about the boy can leave her lips – they both know that he is the least deserving of it. “Of course I'll go. It would look like a confession if you walked into Konoha with her coffin.”

Yes it would, at least to some parties. Kurotsuchi's sense of politics is very fine-tuned once she decides to apply it. Maybe in a few years Shizuka can slap the hat on her and go back to what she's best at. She's pretty sure that she can live with the additional hate it will garner her from the younger woman.

“Full honors, Kurotsuchi.” She silences the rising protest with an impatient wave of her hand. Her head is throbbing. “Four guards for her body, two for the wounded in case they survive, one for the remains of each of the other three. No color. Seiji will be one of them, the others are your call.”

For once she knows better than to argue back. “What if they want to conduct an investigation?”

“They will. Hatake can have a full squad, full disclosure of everything related to her death. I expect a Yamanaka or a Nara to be on that team, so keep your thoughts where nobody can read them. No mouthing off to _anyone_ from Konoha.”

The younger woman's hands clench into fists at her side. Shizuka stares her down, her sight still blurry. The kage is the strongest ninja of a Hidden Village, and she bested Kurotsuchi – through deceit and underhanded tactics, but she _did_ best her.

“Tsuchikage-dono.”

“Dismissed.”

She slumps into herself the moment the other woman has left the room. Her head is spinning and she feels sick to the point of vomiting.

Shizuka won't have that half day off to spend with her son and brothers.

 _Tsunade is dead_.

 

~

 

Murasaki Taiki has not been called on by the Mizukage often since the war ended. She neither likes using his particular skill set, nor does she like using _him_ , and even though it is a weakness to not use every weapon one has at their disposal to its full potential, he understands.

“Mizukage-sama,” he greets her and bows, form perfect, the movement flowing and elegant.

“Murasaki.”

He meets her eyes, their vibrant teal color stealing his breath for a second. They stare at each other, two of the last remnants of the Bloody Mist. She graduated from the class before his – he heard of her slaughter, and she was there to watch his. Their screams echo in his head, piercing and full of terror, and if he’d close his eyes he knows he’d see his classmates’ bloody deaths at the hands of each other.

Between him and the Fifth Mizukage they share too much beauty and horror to ever be comfortable in each other’s presence.

“I want information,” she tells him. Taiki can read her well enough to feel the tightly coiled fury behind the words, a brutal rage that makes her beauty shine in ways not many can appreciate.

“Whatever you command.” He means it.

Being loyal to Yagura was always a balancing act, right on the edge between morals and order, between being human and being a killer. Serving Terumii Mei, in comparison, is easy.

“Tsunade of the Senju was killed yesterday.”

She gives him time to let the words sink in, though if he hadn’t been prepared to receive similar news the shock at hearing it might have shown in his face. Great ninja are never _just_ killed, they go out with a bang, grand and obnoxiously noisy because they have the power to make the ground shake and the waves rise, so they might as well use it.

“How?” It’s not official news yet. He presumes Mei only knows because she kept tabs on the Fifth Hokage through some means.

“She was coming back from a _private visit_ in Iwagakure.” The Mizukage snorts, disbelief written all over her features at the words. “Her and four guards only, they were ambushed inside Iwa, just a few miles from the border to Kusa. No witnesses, no lead. One guard survived, but from the description of the injuries they’re most likely dead by now.”

Taiki is not often candid, but here and now his usual subterfuge will only set him at odds with his kage. “You think it was Iwa?”

“Yes.” The word is a hiss, a declaration of war. “I don’t trust the new Tsuchikage. This wasn’t Tsunade’s first visit. Three times a year, since the war ended. Seven visits, the last one killed her. Get me everything. I want to know who, I want to know _why_.”

This no an act of state, this is personal. Taiki is Kiri, bred and raised, he can read between the lines. Terumii Mei called on him because he is the only one who can give her what she wants, who can find a target to direct her fury and lava at. If he can figure out who killed Senju Tsunade and why, the Mizukage will owe him a personal debt. _A genin team_. No more killing. This is what he has wanted for years. Her peace of mind for his.

“I understand.” Another would be angry to be played like this, but Taiki knows the game. He has survived playing it for more than twenty years.

She looks at him then, eyes soft, her carefully erected posture crumbling, “Taiki, I-”

For a moment they see eye to eye. _I am sorry_. No, she isn’t, not really, not sorry enough to simply guarantee him his genin team now instead of dangling it above his head as a reward he needs to earn first.

“Mizukage-sama.” He bows again and leaves the room without waiting for permission.

They are both Kiri. This is how the game is played. They don’t know another way.

It is a sad knowledge, but he feels secure in it, is almost relieved that nothing has changed. Kirigakure is everything he knows, and he will gladly give his life away for his village. He survived the Bloody Mist, the purges, the terror, the screams and the stench of the dead rotting away hidden by the mist. It is too late for them to learn new tricks; he has to leave that to the next generation and hope that they will make his village a better one.

“Utagawa!” The special jounin in question looks up from where he is reading some trashy romance novel behind the mission counter and straightens at the sight of Taiki.

“Murasaki-sama,” he greets, closing his book. “You aren’t on the roster today.”

There is a frown on his face that disappears instantly once Taiki gives him a pointed look. He makes the younger shinobi nervous and never pretends that he doesn’t know why. He has trained almost every new recruit of the last ten years in genjutsu at some point, has been the erotic fantasy of most and the lover of some of them.

He leans against the counter nonchalantly, the misty blue yukata dipping down to expose his right collarbone. Half of his blonde hair is still up in a bun, the other half frames his face in strands that he elaborately arranged to look casual this morning.

 _Pity you can’t handle a sword_ , Ameyuri had said after he’d slaughtered a team of Konoha shinobi in front of her in the Third War. _I’d fuck you if I didn’t think you’d kill me while at it_ , Zabuza had added – the majority of Kirigakure shares Zabuza’s sentiment these days, but curiously he still never lacks for willing bedmates.

“No, I’m not,” he replies easily, bluish-grey eyes fixed on Utagawa. “But I have an… assignment from the Mizukage.”

The young man swallows. Someone behind Taiki inhales sharply.

 _Sex_ , they think, or something close enough to it. He rarely ever needs to lay hands on a target in that way however. His genjutsu are subtle, flawless and multi-layered, but only few are versed enough in the art to be able to tell exactly where reality ends and the illusion begins with him. He conditioned them well, the young ones. Well enough for them to forget that his moniker is _geisha_ , not _whore_.

“What do you need?” Utagawa finally asks.

“A place on the next ship to Hot Water, a civilian passport from Waterfall and credit information for a banker in Grass.”

 

~

 

“Mama, are you crying cause Tsunade-oba-chan won’t come back?”

The weight of his tiny body barely dips the mattress when Keiji climbs into her bed. Shizuka didn’t hear him walk into the room, nor did she hear the door open. Her head feels heavy, partially from crying and partially still from the strain of yesterday’s impulsive search for Tsunade.

She slowly lifts her arm from her face and extends it so her son can cuddle into her side. Without thinking she presses him close, taking comfort in his warm, soft, _living_ body.

When her eyes have adjusted to the light again she looks towards the entrance of the room, where Haku is standing in the doorframe. He doesn’t ask and she doesn’t curse him for not leaving her to wallow in solitude.

“Yes, I am, darling,” she whispers and turns her head away from her brother to hide her face against Keiji’s black hair.

It’s a lie, or at least not the whole truth. She was at the scene of the attack today, and with that visit came knowledge. The ninja blown to pieces had been Yakumo. Kuchi had died from blood loss, losing half his arm in the blast that had killed Yakumo. The two survivors had been Eiko and Akira, the former of which had died from internal bleeding within an hour of the patrol arriving. Akira is in critical condition but still alive, apparently thanks to an expert medic the Kusa shinobi had hurried over from a nearby village.

“Don’t cry mama,” Keiji pleads, hugging her tightly. “She wouldn’t like you crying.”

That makes Shizuka laugh despite the tears. Tsunade couldn’t stand tears, nor any other overly sappy show of emotion. Until yesterday she herself thought that she didn’t have any tears left.

“Yes, she wouldn’t.” Just for a moment she pictures Senju Tsunade finding her crying to herself, and it triggers another round of soft laughter – shinobi, at the heart of things, are trained to be killers. There is no place for tears in their lives, not really.

“You won’t tell them,” Haku suddenly comments from the door, still standing there motionless, watching her and Keiji hold each other with a tender expression that reminds here why he dropped out of the corps after their father’s death.

“No.” The tears have stopped coming now. She holds Keiji tight and listens to the underlining steel in her own voice. “Konoha can have everything else. No this.”

 _Not him_. She can and will condemn herself, her life, her position, _everything_ , but they won’t touch her son. It makes her unsuitable for being the Tsuchikage, and she took the hat knowing it, knowing that when it would come down to a choice between Keiji and Iwa, she would always pick her son.

“So what now?”

Shizuka closes her eyes and takes a breath. “Akira won’t talk. When… if she wakes up they will know that we are hiding something. Hatake knows that I didn’t have Tsunade killed and Akira will confirm it, but that won’t be enough. Konoha will want to know who, they’ll want to know _why_.”

Haku hums to himself as he always does when he is thinking. The sound it quiet and soothing to her ears, and she feels Keiji’s breathing slowly even out as he falls asleep.

“Why, then?” her brother finally asks. “You were there, you tell me.”

Taking care not to wake him, Shizuka carefully lets go of her sleeping son and moves off the bed. Her yukata is wrinkled, her black hair a mess and she needs some coffee and a shower before she’ll feel fully human again, but that can wait for now.

They sit down outside on the porch beside each other and watch the koi circling in the pond lazily.

“Either someone wants to frame us or this was a personal vendetta,” she recounts, remembering the state of destruction at the scene. “It was a full-on fight, they weren’t after hostages. The only element that wasn’t used was wind, though the damage from Eiko’s storm will fool anyone who doesn’t know better. Lots of Fire, Water and Lightning damage, only minor Earth jutsu. Tsunade got at least one of them good going by the crater and the amount of blood, but it looks like they were keeping them close together. Whoever the attackers were, they definitely knew that she would’ve killed them in open combat, and they also knew how to kill her. Okajima’s report was detailed: they almost decapitated her with chakra wire, someone ran a high voltage Lightning jutsu through her, then she was stabbed in the heart multiple times and set on fire with what he assumes was a forbidden Fire technique.”

“You didn’t see the bodies?” Haku sounds sick, almost. Her certainly looks sick, all the color drained from his already pale face. “Not that I’d want you to, but…”

“Kurotsuchi’s squad left with Akira and the bodies at sunrise. I missed them by a little over an hour, though from the record their injuries were distinct. No poison, no gas… they knew that it wouldn’t kill Tsunade.”

She doesn’t mention how the others died in detail, doesn’t want Haku to know that the biggest part they found of Yakumo, who he’d made jokes with less than two days ago, was a hand. Or that Kuchi lost not only his arm in the explosion but was riddled with shrapnel, fighting on despite. Or how Eiko fried her own nervous system with a lightning storm, which was why she hadn’t felt that three ribs had punctured her lungs.

“It sounds personal to me. I mean if they’d wanted to put the blame on us they could have done it more effectively.”

Her brother has a point of course, although it could as well be a calculated ruse to not appear suspicious by pointing at Iwa too obviously. Shizuka has a reputation for operating in the dark. It is known beyond the borders of Rock Country that she was the Iwa Black Ops Commander before being made Tsuchikage – she can’t discredit anyone who suspects her, because if she had really killed Tsunade she would have done it in a similar fashion to how the murder actually happened.

“I don’t know, Haku.” The admission isn’t easy to make, but at this point she’d rather not keep him in the dark too much. “I will go have a talk with Ikeno. We lack information. Movement across the border, movement in the border villages, any irregularities… without a lead there’s not much even Konoha can do.”

Haku gives her a pointed look. His chakra blue eyes mirror her own perfectly. “Be careful, sister.”

Shizuka nods and then gets up from the porch, leaving her younger brother to take care of Keiji. She doesn’t like that she has to give up time spent with her son _again_. Her being a kage and having to stay inside the village most of the time was supposed to be a good thing, a change in schedule that should have given her more time for her family. She warred with Kurotsuchi for months but now, when there was finally some _peace_ , Tsunade was murdered.


	2. Part 1: Chapter 2 - The Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one POV for this chapter because, well... she took too long, there wasn't space for anyone else. It's a bit of an info dump, but only as far as the actual murder is concerned. There's also a nice chunk of Kakashi to make up for it, and some Genma for good measure. 
> 
> I still didn't forgive myself for killing Tsunade by the way. Love her.

The sun has just started to set when an ANBU materializes outside the window to her living room, rapping his gloved knuckles against her window exactly once. Kazue looks up from her book, makes eye contact with the shinobi and then nods sharply. He vanishes in a whirl of leaves an instant later.

Two and a half days have passed since the Fifth Hokage was killed, and now her body has finally come back to Konohagakure. The Iwa-nin pushed the pace hard to make it from the border to Kusa to Konohagakure in less than two days, but she can’t muster any thankfulness for it. Senju Tsunade was slain on their land, and Kazue isn’t unbiased enough to not assume that it wasn’t their doing – the Fourth Tsuchikage is a former Iwa Black Ops operative, said to have assassinated dozens of high ranking ninja and civilian targets during her active time in the force. You know one Rock-nin, you know all of them.

She throws on the white robe that marks her as a member of the Konoha Council and flickers out of her apartment in the south of the village. The way to the gate isn’t far.

Since the nights have started to be cooler lately there aren’t many people about outside of the food and entertainment districts. The public wasn’t made aware of the death of their former kage yet for safety precautions, but most of the ninja have figured out that something is off. Every patrol she passes tenses when they notice that an elder in full regalia just flew past them.

A small contingent is forming in front of the main gate. Hatake is already there for once, wearing his robe and hat, with two guards hovering close-by. The Jounin Commander is beside him and both of Tsunade’s students stand off to the side, faces ashen in the pale light coming from the torches and the sun that by now is only an orange-red line on the horizon. Shirakawa nods gently at her when she lands beside him at the back of the group.

“They will be here any minute,” he reveals, his usually calm eyes small and surrounded by dark circles.

“Uzumaki?”

The other council member shakes his head. “The messenger bird came back on midday saying he left Kumo yesterday evening. Since Hokage-sama didn’t seem it prudent to tell him why exactly his presence in the village is required he will arrive tomorrow night at the earliest.”

Murakami comes to stand beside them just in time to hear the end of the statement.

“He won’t take it well,” he mumbles under his breath, and the either two agree silently.

It is for the better that Uzumaki Naruto isn’t here to see Tsunade’s casket delivered. He is without doubt an exceptional character, and will without doubt make for a great Hokage, but as off the present he is a teenager just short of nineteen years old, war hero or not. Everyone is aware that he won’t take the news well.

Silence falls when the Iwa squad comes into view. They are a black line against the green, yellow and red leaves of the forest, _they bring death_.

Iwagakure no Kurotsuchi is in the lead, her face an unreadable mask. Behind her Kazue can see another shinobi, then the coffin bearers, carrying a heavy coffin made of old oak between them, then another Iwa-nin, behind him three more ninja bearing huge scrolls. Following in the rear are five more ninja, clustering around a stretcher with a motionless figure on it. Some of those actually wear Kusa headbands from what she can see in the dim light.

There is a strict protocol for bearing the remains of a ninja into their home village. It varies according to the status, rank, and cause of death, among other things. Kazue knows it by heart, she had to bring Suna-nin back to Wind Country after the Second and Third wars, many of them, though never those who had died by her own hands.

Kurotsuchi doesn’t have a diplomat’s grace, but she has the upbringing of a kage’s granddaughter. It’s an adequate ceremony, stilted and awkward, but the only time before when another village bore home the remains of a kage was when Konoha brought the Second Raikage’s body back to Kumo after the Gold and Silver Brothers had killed him – which was an entirely different situation, and everybody present is aware of it.

The Hokage finishes the official part with a few quick words. Then Tsunade’s two students walk forward to take the coffin from the two Iwa shinobi still carrying it. The woman is crying silently; the girl isn’t, but her expression is a twisted mix of emotions.

So they march.

Kato and Haruno with the remains go first, _in front of_ the Hokage, then Murakami, Shiragawa and herself, then the Jounin Commander and the shinobi carrying the surviving Konoha-nin, the scroll bearers and others following behind them.

As expected it’s the ninja who come first, lining the street, standing in front of the buildings or on top of their roofs. _They know_. The coffin precedes their Hokage, there is only person deserving of such honor.

Silence settles over the main road. They press their right fists over their heart when the procession passes them, one after another. Then the few civilians still about come, slowly trickling in, drawn by the mass of people and shocked by the silence, the mourning.

Kazue crosses eyes with Shiragawa, who is sharing her thoughts apparently. If a riot would break out now, the Rock ninja would most likely die. It’s a quiet evening, sure, but a handful of foreign shinobi won’t be able to avoid an angry Konoha mob, not inside Konohagakure itself. More dead is the last thing they need now, even if Tsunade’s murder was indeed a ploy from the Tsuchikage.

A place is already prepared on top of the Hokage Tower where they place the coffin. Thankfully nobody rises to action and they make it there without interruption.

They leave most of their encourage behind at the bottom of the tower. Katsu’s son leads most of the foreigners to their temporary quarters while the scrolls with the remains are given to the Hokage’s ANBU for safekeeping. Only Kurotsuchi, an Iwa-nin and one of the Kusa people remain behind.

“Aki-!”

The shout makes all heads turn towards the stretcher with the unconscious survivor – Kato Shizune has folded back the brown cloth covering the comatose ninja. The woman’s mask has been broken in two, only the upper half still covering her face. It’s enough to retain anonymity, at least to those unfamiliar with either the face or the mask. Both the women obviously know her from the way Haruno is now hissing at the Kusa medic who kept watch over the woman’s vitals.

“Sakura,” the Hokage’s tone is low but commanding. The young woman freezes instantly. “Go and take her to the hospital. Both of you.”

An unspoken conversation passes between them and after a few seconds she nods, face set into a determined scowl. Two more ANBU appear and the four of them vanish with the wounded only seconds later.

Murakami makes a displeased sound in the back of his throat, but otherwise nobody comments on what is happening.

“Inside.” Kakashi’s voice is raspy, either from disuse or emotion.

He stays on top of the tower with Tunsade’s coffin while the rest of them fill into the Hokage’s office, which is thankfully heated – Kazue isn’t as young as she used to be, and her old injuries ache after walking through the night like this. It’s her and the two other council members, the two ANBU, Kurotsuchi and the other Iwa-nin and the Kusa medic. Genma appears half a minute after them, but another ten minutes go by before the Hokage joins them.

The ANBU place the three scrolls with the remains of the Fifth’s guards on his desk without prompt and he carefully places the scroll with Tsunade’s beside them. “Nobody enters the tower until I say otherwise,” he tells the two lazily, a little more himself now, and they bow and flicker away.

Eight people are left. The room is dead silent.

„Report,” Kakashi orders, looking the male Iwa shinobi, and despite everything Kazue has to applaud his discipline of looking at his superior for permission before he answers.

“Ogata Kaita, Hokage-sama. Rock Country jounin, squad leader of the Third Iwa Border Patrol.” He stands straight, eyes forward, voice even. There is the urge to hate him, simply because he is Iwa and Tsunade is dead, but as an elder Kazue has to do better, as to _be_ better.

So she sees a man with skin that is too dark for an Iwa native, a scar on his neck, a loyalty that isn’t bought but earned, the look of someone who has lived through a war and was marked by it.

A second of pause and then the Hokage motions for him to continue.

“On the morning two days ago we were notified by our commander, Okajima-dono, that a messenger bird had arrived with the message that the party of the Fifth Hokage would move across the border around midday. The First through Fourth Patrols were assigned patrol duty along the Kusa border, with the Fifth Squad on standby duty. Since there was no border checkpoint on our assigned patrol route we only encountered one group all morning, a jounin and his genin team returning from an assignment in Grass.

Shortly after noon, after we had reached the easternmost part of our patrol and turned around towards the main camp, I sensed abnormal vibrations from approximately ten miles north of the border. After communicating the occurrence to my squad and waiting a due time to exclude natural causes we tried to make contact with the Second Squad, who had however not caught on to the activity and continued with their patrol, moving outside our transmitter’s reach.

Aware that the Fifth Hokage’s party was supposed to cross the border around this time and knowing that by moving inwards we would definitely loose radio contact to all other Squads, I, as the squad leader, decided to go against protocol and switch to open frequency. We broadcasted our location and destination and got confirmation from both the Second Squad as well as a Kusa border patrol that was within radio range.

The vibrations stopped entirely when we were about three and a half miles from the point of origin. Smoke was visible in the sky above the forest by this point, and rain clouds had amassed above the scene, though no actual rain was visible. We continued onwards in radio silence.”

He stops in his account then, and Kazue knows why: this was the easy part, the clinical details. There was a breach of protocol, but it was justified concerning what happened and if she was his superior officer she could commend the man for his actions – there is nothing worse than a ranking officer who hesitates. Hesitation costs lives.

“We- when we reached the battlefield it was obvious that the Hokage’s party had been attacked. There was devastating damage to the environment: uprooted trees, burned vegetation, a part of a nearby cliff had gone down in a landslide and a big crater had been blown into a rock formation. Three people were on the ground, all unmoving, and a fourth body was aflame with blue flames. After assessing the situation three of us rushed to put out the flames, but they were impervious to water and I finally doused them with earth. The Hokage was already dead by that point.

Apart from the post-mortem burns I could detect residue Lightning chakra on her. She had been three quarters decapitated and stabbed in the heart four or five times.”

Efficient. Not pretty, but very effective. Not many people had known enough about Tsunade’s healing abilities to figure out a way to kill her.

Kazue can see it in the faces of the other council members, Genma and Kakashi that they have come to the same conclusion: this was a planned murder, most likely set up long in advance. A plan like this has to be executed perfectly to work. Senju Tsunade was too good a ninja to not be aware of her weaknesses – she didn’t walk blindly into multiple killing blows and a Lightning jutsu at the same time.

“Continue,” the Hokage finally orders.

“As I extinguished the fire one of the bodies began moving. She was a woman with dark brown hair and misty blue eyes. The bone of her left leg had broken cleanly through the skin, otherwise she appeared surprisingly unharmed. She started to crawl towards the shinobi we brought back with us, mumbling incomprehensible words. We thought her under shock, as her pupils were dilated and she ignored our questions almost completely. Tatsuo, our medic, began to tend the badly wounded woman, who was the body closed to the Hokage. Her injuries were grave and he exclaimed multiple times that he didn’t know how she was still alive. We all had taken her for dead.

I went to inspect the last body, a man of middle age. He had lost half an arm in an explosion and been riddled with shrapnel. Someone, most likely the Fifth, had cauterize the stump of his arm, but he was covered in blood all over and his body was already beginning to cool. Not far from him I found a hand that didn’t match his skin tone and various other parts of the same person.

After the perimeter was secured my squad gathered around the two wounded beside the Hokage’s body. Tatsuo was trying to keep the dark haired woman alive, but she was bleeding out from internal injuries from under his fingers.

Approximately six minutes after our arrival we detected activity coming from the border and were briefed via open radio that it was the Kusa border patrol, who identified themselves with the correct security code and were at the location about half a minute after that. It was a four-man-squad headed by Iwasa-san,” he said and nodded towards the green-haired Grass medic. “Who wasted no time in assisting Tatsuo with trying to keep the Konoha-nin alive.

While they were occupied me, Date Nariko and two of the Grass ninja, one of them a tracker, fanned out to find any traces of the attackers while the last two stayed behind to protect our medics in case they would need backup. We found a set of multiple tracks, but it lead to a rock field half a mile north-east and disappeared there.

We re-grouped and decided to head back to the scene of the battle, as logic demanded that even if we somehow got a hold of the assaulters we would be severely outclassed and leave our comrades defenseless. When we arrived back at the location however, the second Fire ninja with the broken leg had crashed, choking and coughing up large amounts of blood. Iwasa had taken over her care while Tatsuo tried to keep the other shinobi alive, but she couldn’t do much and the woman died within minutes from a lung that was punctured in multiple places, as I was later told.”

His face is white as a sheet when he recounts the incident, and the medic looks on the verge of tears. _You can’t save everyone_. Death creeps up on the best of them, and quite often you don’t see it coming until it’s too late.

“At this point the Second Patrol arrived. To avoid the further destruction of any remaining evidence and with the goal of keeping the last survivor alive in mind it was unanimously decided to seal away the bodies and move towards the nearest border checkpoint, which was a small Grass base 15 miles to the west. When within radio range of the checkpoint, Iwasa-san requested medical assistance and a messenger was dispatched to fetch a seasoned Kusa-medic on duty in a nearby border village.

After that I cannot provide much information, as Okajimi-dono met our contingent by the border and I remained behind with most of our forces to give a full account of what had happened.”

It is Genma who hands the man a bottle of water, and after a moment of standing stock-still Ogata takes it and gulps the contents down like a man dying from thirst.

The Kusa-nin steps forward without prompt to continue the story, or least add her own version of it – if there is foul play at work then they have already matched their versions of what happened. If not then it might expose any lie the Iwa jounin told them.

“I am Iwasa Yayoi, Kusagakure jounin and leader of the Third Kusa Border Patrol Squad,” she begins, her voice less confident then the other ninja’s but with no less intent. “It happened as Ogata-san said. We were on patrol close to the border when an emergency call came through on an open radio channel, issued by an Iwa Border Patrol.

According to our non-aggression pact with Rock, ninja of either village are not permitted to cross the border into foreign territory without explicit permission. Technically, complying with the emergency call could have been treated as an act of hostility by Iwa.”

“So why did you do it?” It is a justified question. Ogata broke protocol by issuing an emergency call through open radio, but the worst he’d had to fear was being temporarily stripped of his rank for reckless behavior. Iwasa on the other hand could have started a war by leading her squad into Rock Country without a direct go-ahead from an Iwa higher-up.

She swallows audibly. “Hokage-sama… by now it was an open secret among us permanent border guards that the Fifth Hokage travelled to Iwa a few times a year. I knew her party had crossed the border into Rock a little over a week prior. When Ogata called for backup in a heavy altercation close to the border it was obvious who was involved… no matter how insignificant you are, if you know that giving your life might save the greatest medical ninja the nations have ever seen you are a fool not to rush to the scene.”

“Is that so?” The Hokage’s tone is unreadable.

“Yes, Hokage-sama.” The woman is shaking, clenching her hands in front of her body, but she returns his gaze without blinking.

Hatake does the right thing then. Not the proper thing, not the politically savvy thing, but the _right_ thing. This is why Kazue is proud to serve under him, to call this man her Hokage, to walk to her death on his orders.

He bows.

“Then we thank you, Iwasa Yayoi of Kusagakure, for taking the risk of doing the right thing. Without your aid there might not have been anyone living to bring back home at all.”

Kurotsuchi hisses through closed teeth at the gesture, but nobody else makes a sound. The Kusa kunoichi just stares at him, disbelief written all across her face.

“Hokage-sama…” She returns his bow stiffly, eyes down.

“Continue, please.”

She needs a few seconds compose herself. “We hurried to the scene as fast as possible. Kubota-kun, our tracker, found the Iwa squad’s trail and we made radio contact once we were close to the coordinates given in the initial emergency call. After verifying our identity we encountered the other team. I immediately assisted the Iwa medic-nin, who was obviously overwhelmed with the extend of the injuries sustained by the unconscious Konoha kunoichi, in treating the patient who was in critical condition. The other kunoichi to me displayed clear signs of shock, though I now have to assume they were after-effects of some kind of jutsu.

I sent Kubota with another of my nin and the two Rock shinobi to inspect the surroundings, hoping to either find their tracks or at least make sure that the enemy was gone and we wouldn’t have to fear a surprise attack. Meanwhile Niizuma, the Iwa-medic, and me fought to keep the unknown kunoichi alive. She had severe internal bleeding and without blood supplements it took both of us to keep her somewhat stable.

When I turned around to make sure the second kunoichi hadn’t blacked out I found her lying on her side, coughing blood. At first I thought she might have bitten her tongue because of the shock running out and the pain of her broken leg coming in. She started chocking within fifteen seconds however, which was when I sat her up to inspect her lungs. She had three broken ribs, all puncturing her lungs. If we’d found out in the beginning we might have been able to do something for her, but taking the condition of the other wounded into consideration there was no realistic chance for both of them to survive.”

Now there are tears in her eyes. “I took her pain away, there was nothing more to be done.”

This is what war does, it makes you feel powerless. From all shinobi it is hardest for the medics. They are the ones who swear an oath to preserve lives and then are sent into a battlefield to watch people die. The truth is an ugly thing.

“The Second Iwa Border Patrol arrived minutes after she had died. It was decided among us three squad leader that now the remaining Konoha-nin was our main priority. There was a sealing expert among the Rock contingent who sealed the bodies of the Hokage as well as the two dead and the remains we could gather of the last ninja away. With now three medics we could alternate treatment and keep the patient stable enough to move her to the Eastern Grass Border Checkpoint

Her injuries were devastating. Ruptured spleen, perforation of the stomach, numerous torn muscles in her abdomen, four broken ribs and a stab wound from the back that went clean through her right kidney. The damage to the kidney itself had been healed, professionally so, presumably by Senju Tsunade herself, as was a wound on the woman’s head we later discovered. Without that treatment she would have died from brain swelling before I arrived at the scene… as it was I radioed the border checkpoint, reported an incoming medical emergency and requested assistance.

To prevent any more chances of a political escalation only three Iwa-nin crossed the border with me and my team, the medics Niizuma Tatsuo and Torii Matsui who were needed in keeping her alive, and the leader of the Second Iwa Border Patrol, Hashimoto.

He escorted us to the medical station a mile from the border where we rushed her into surgery. My own teacher performed the procedure and monitored her vitals until we headed off to Konoha in the morning of the next day. She isn’t in critical condition anymore, but even he can’t predict when she will awake from her coma.”

The woman is their only source of information. Konoha can’t accuse Iwa of anything openly until they have her testimony and if she dies there is no eyewitness left that isn’t a Rock ninja – Kazue doesn’t like this and she knows from how tense the atmosphere in the room has become that the other Konoha-nin don’t like it any better.

Hatake sighs. He looks his age in the artificial light of the office, his eyes sunken and skin bloodless. “What if she wakes up?”

For a moment the medic looks surprised, then she shakes her head. “The rehabilitation process will take time and she will have to adapt a special diet as those aren’t the first heavy injuries to her digestive tract. I cannot speak about her mental health of course, but I expect her to return to duty within half a year.”

“You don’t expect her to sustain lasting damage, Iwasa-san?” Shiragawa asks soberly when nobody else raises their voice. “From your diagnosis I expected… worse.”

“You see this type of damage only on veteran shinobi, honored Elder, and there is a reason for that,” Iwasa replies, face hard. “The bodies of normal people can’t withstand such wounds, _they die_. Of course she sustained lasting damage, but I saw the sheer devastation in that forest. She didn’t die, she still has both her legs and eyes. Not going back to the active force when they feel they can do it equals betrayal to people like her.”

Images flash by in front of her mind: Masato, his back to her, fighting, always fighting, standing tall in a sea of burning enemies, flashing his brilliant smile at her, taunting her, holding her, promising that they’ll never go back… the scroll Inuzuka Kira brings her. _I’m sorry, Kazue_.

He wasn’t a career shinobi, her never-husband, but still he went back. Because somebody had to. Because if he could save lives he would.

“Thank you both for your accounts on the what transpired two days ago.”

The two shinobi are visibly exhausted now that the adrenaline has worn off – even Kurotsuchi of Iwagakure looks drained, or at least wary. She has made a name for herself already, but it’s obvious that she isn’t ready to be a kage yet.

“There will more questions tomorrow,” Kakashi continues, looking at Kurotsuchi. “They will be directed at you as well as the other eyewitnesses who entered Konohagakure. Until then you are our honored guests. Get some rest.”

Nobody argues, for which Kazue is glad. Her old bones hurt, or maybe it is the sudden memory of Masato and the siege that has drained her.

After a round of bows the foreign ninja are escorted out of the door by an ANBU. The moment it closes behind them everyone visible relaxes, taking deeper breaths, loosening their shoulders, postures slumping to something less formal.

“Someone should look after her.” Shirakawa stretches, then nods at the Hokage, his fellow council members and the Jounin Commander in that order and makes to leave.

“There are Anbu for that, you know?” Murakami drawls to his back, a frown on his face. “It is not our duty to keep watch at an injured soldier’s bedside all night.”

This is why they don’t get along. Shirakawa, civilian born and raised, ANBU strategist through nothing but his own virtue and hard work, always putting his village first, and Murakami, beloved clan child, raised for success, to be a leader of his fellow ninja, with a heritage to pass on and two strong sons to inherit it. They are brothers in arms but not brothers in spirit and most of the time Kazue can sympathize with neither, not when she has paid too high a prize for the freedom of Konohagakure.

She knows why Hatake selected the other two as his council members. She’ll never know why he selected _her_.

Shirakawa looks only slightly affronted, which means that the last few hours took their toll on him as well. Instead of answering or picking up the argument thrown his way he simply gives a noncommittal hum and leaves the room.

As usual Murakami Yoshinori doesn’t take being ignored well. Only a sharp look from the Hokage prevents him from chasing after the other man to continue the bickering.

“Hokage-sama,” he murmurs, bows and marshes out with a face like a thundercloud.

When the door has closed behind him Genma rolls his eyes. “Old bastard.”

Kazue can’t exactly disagree, but nonetheless gives the man a disapproving look – it is improper form for the Jounin Commander to badmouth a Council Member while another elder is present.

“Show some respect, young man,” she tells him firmly, but he knows her well enough to realize that the rebuke lacks its usual bite. Kazue isn’t in the mood to get testy over Murakami and Shirakawa of all people. Not when Senju Tsunade’s dead body is sealed in a scroll lying three feet away on the Hokage’s desk.

“You know it’s true,” he says and shrugs. He is in a mood too, even if he would deny it when confronted with the fact. All of them are on edge still.

“Who is she?”

She asks it more to get the Sixth Hokage to stop staring into space than out of any real curiosity, but it does the trick. Hatake Kakashi blinks and turns his head to focus dark eyes on the two other occupants of the room.

He takes off the hat slowly and gets up from his chair, throwing the garment carelessly onto his seat.

“Ask Tsunade.” The bitterness is unmistakable in his voice. “She collected them, went on this or that diplomatic trip and came back with another one of them. All without a history, all loyal to the death. Three of the four escorts she had were her own, the last was an ex-Anbu of the Inuzuka clan she managed to recruit only the gods know how.”

That goes along pretty well with what Kazue expected.

There is a reason a kage usually holds their position till death and it is that if you have the old one alive while the new one rules you will always have split loyalties.

“So there are more?” Thankfully it’s Genma who asks and not Kazue. The incredulous question would have made her look a lot less dignified then she likes to pretend she is.

“One or two more,” Kakashi confirms. “They are both out of the village, though the older may be dead. The last time I saw him was before I became Hokage. If they are still alive I expect them to come back now that the news about her death are spreading…”

“Even if they come back, I don’t think they’ll be much help. Our best bet is the kunoichi, who is comatose, and we don’t know when she’ll wake up.” The Jounin Commander leans against a side wall, making an unhappy face.

“Kato definitely knew our survivor, Haruno as well if I’d have to bet.” Kazue thinks back on the woman’s scream when she pushed back the blanket covering the wounded Konoha-nin. There was familiarity there and she stopped just in time to prevent a name from leaving her lips – it makes sense that Tsunade’s assistant, her confidant, would know most of her secrets.

“Good luck trying to get anything out of Shizune,” Genma snorts, shaking his head. “Tsunade practically raised her, she won’t spill any of her secrets.”

The Hokage doesn’t say anything in return. He’s smart enough to have known that Tsunade still being alive could lead to complications down the line when he accepted the hat.

It’s almost midnight, the stars are out.

“I will take my leave now, Hokage-sama,” she declares and bows to Hatake, who watches her go mutely. Genma waves at her behind his back, though it’s less enthusiastic then is his usual wont.

Without the full council there they can’t make any decisions. Unless the kunoichi miraculously wakes up during the night the situation will be the same by tomorrow morning, so there is no reason for Kazue to stay up and speculate with them. Anyway, Hatake isn’t as comfortable around her as he is around Genma, and who would have thought that Katsu’s son would one day become a Hokage’s confidant?

She wonders briefly if they are lovers, but in the end it won’t make a difference and this isn’t her secret to know.

So she wanders back to her flat, using her eyes to avoid the patrols on the rooftops. When she arrives the apartment is deadly silent, but Kazue is used to it by now. Masato has been dead for 25 years.


	3. Part 1: Chapter 3 - The Survivor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ninja world isn't only Konoha. After the Fourth War a lot more countries have to get their shit back in order, and most of them don't have the means at their disposal to easily make their problems go away. Beware of biased protagonists - on all sides. And politics of course, it wouldn't be fun otherwise.

“They are coming back,” Haruo announces, lifting his head from the papers on his desk to look out of the window.

Momoko doesn’t ask. She doesn’t have to. It has only been one and a half years but she learnt to understand him, to know what he is talking about without having to ask.

“All of them or only hot boy?”

He frowns, closes his eyes and concentrates. This time the party remains further away from Amegakure, keeping their distance as if they know that they are being watched.

“The hot guy, the angry one, the siblings…” He breaks off then, lost between the chakra signatures skirting through the grass of Rain Country. “I can’t say for sure, but I think that they are one less. The siblings’ chakra is too similar, I can’t pick out anything clearly between them.”

She scoffs and gets up to walk over to the large window that dominates their office. “You need to learn how to control the rain. We’re chasing shadows here.”

“How about you learn to control it?” Haruo sounds grumpy but he can’t help it. Momoko’s chakra control is excellent, his however is near unparalleled… and still he is leagues away from being good enough to infuse the rain over Amegakure with his chakra and master their ultimate sensor technique.

Momoko flips him off with beautiful accuracy. “It’s not as if I could do it, even if I had the control. Idiot.”

He hums faintly in agreement and turns back to his papers. Unfortunately only one of them can do the administrative work of their job – not that she is in any way unhappy about that. When you are young and magnificent at what you do, sitting down to do actual _work_ that can’t be solved by beating someone up feels like an unnecessary burden.

“Did Hatsune find out where they were bound?” he asks finally after he is done assigning the new genin teams to whatever poor souls were volunteered for the job.

“No.” She shakes her head, the long ends of her headband entangling with her hair. “East, obviously. Past the border into Kusa. Nobody gave chase, we’d just lose them again. Ishi, Ame, Kusa and back as far as anyone can tell. Matsukata won’t spare good ninja just to catch a bunch of drug dealers and Eto doesn’t give a fuck as usual.”

“Eto is kinda busy trying to convince Konoha that he didn’t have as much as his pinky finger involved in the murder of Senju Tsunade, you know?”

“Pshaw! Look, even if he had a hand in it, so what?” Momoko crosses her hands in front of her chest, pushes her breasts up unnecessarily. “It’s not like they will actually do anything to him without proof. Grass is flat broke and their ninja are piss-poor, nobody would ever believe they killed her.”

“Now listen to me,” he snaps at her. “The Hokage might be amicable for the moment, but gods know what will happen if the really thinks Kusa offed her. You know-“

No, she doesn’t. She was born after the Third War, while he has lived through three Great Wars in his lifetime. She won’t know, can’t know, and he prays that she ever will either.

“You can’t trust the Great Nations,” Haruo finishes lamely.

His partner wrinkles her forehead. They can read each other and she very well knows that this wasn’t what he intended to say, that the fight didn’t suddenly go out of him without reason. So instead of continuing their argument she sighs and sits down on her chair.

“What are you afraid of, Haruo of Amegakure?” Of course she goes for his pride – nobody bothered to teach her that pride doesn’t matter if you are dead.

“I’m afraid that Konoha will walk into Ame again,” he says, uncaring about the icy tone of his voice. “Konoha and Iwa and Suna. I’m a hella lot afraid that they’ll come here and start another war, that they’ll fight each other and kill us and our country in the process. I’m afraid for Ame, for our shinobi, for our civilians, for every single one of our citizens, because if they come we won’t be able to do shit about it.”

Wide magenta-colored eyes stare at him, as pretty and unseeing as ever. Sometimes Haruo wishes that she can see his face, see _him_ , just for a moment.

“It’s our damn job to protect them, of course we will!” she proclaims, insulted as if it is their skill he doubts.

Haruo gets up then, pushes back his chair forcefully and walks over to the window Momoko stared of minutes ago. What he sees is rain of course, rain and old, rotten towers, clouds of smoke on the horizon where the factories have started working again. Rain isn’t a beautiful country, not by a long stretch, not anymore.

“We aren’t Hanzo,” he finally says. “You aren’t, I’m not, we aren’t together. If Konoha ever invades us again you will take as many people as you can and you will _run_. You’ll go north, hide in the caves, protect the civvies, make sure no one gets within a mile of them.”

“We’re of the same rank, Haruo, it’s not like you can order me around, you know?”

Three steps and she is standing beside him, almost naked and warm and _alive_. Yes, she is unhappy with what he’s telling her, vibrating with pent-up frustration. Momoko wants to shout at him, shake him, slap him, but he knows that she won’t do any of it. They are partners after all.

“Yes, and you know that strategy is what I do, why I’m here with you and not some guy who can kill a dozen people by himself but doesn’t know how to negotiate a contract on trade taxes,“ he retorts.

“Bastard,” she mumbles, well aware that he hears it.

“Bitch,” he mutters back and watches her lips turn up at the corners when she tries and fails to suppress a smile.

“Like I’m gonna leave you on your own… you’d die, idiot, and then Ame would be half a kage short. I can’t run this village by myself, in case you didn’t notice.”

She is right – and still Haruo won’t let her stay with him if it comes to the worst. One of them will have to evacuate the village and if there’s one thing he’ll never do it’s to leave Momo behind to be killed by those Konoha dogs.

Faces flash by his eyes. His mother, his sister, his brother. For once it’s good that she can’t see the look on his face. She’d have know then.

_I won’t lose you too._

 

~

 

_It’s only fair that I die with you._

This was the thought she lost consciousness with and it is the thought she wakes up to.

The world is hazy, colors are muted, sounds are muffled, her vision won’t clear properly and she can’t even feel a sliver of pain. _Morphine_. It’s a wonderful way to save you from dying of the pain but also horrible to come down from because then the pain will be back.

Akira didn’t have much need for it since she joined Konohagakure. When your master is the best medic-nin in the nations you don’t have much need for painkillers… or hospitals, she hasn’t been in a hospital in a long time. She can’t remember how many years and when she tries to count she loses the number three times and then gives up. Her mind is fuzzy. _Fucking morphine_.

Tsunade would have fixed her up. Tsunade _did_ fix her up. That was when they killed her.

Being able to vomit would have been great now, but when she leans her head out of the bed and gags nothing comes out. There is a strange pull in her stomach. It’s ugly and she knows that it should hurt a lot, would hurt a lot without the drugs.

Her hands and feet are fastened to the bed in a way she can’t undo as she is, foggy head and all. Smart medic. Probably Shizune, she’s the smart one, Haruno still has too many inhibitions. Funny how you can fight on the frontlines of the biggest war in history and have qualms about simple stuff like tying trained killers on drugs to their beds to prevent them from going on a rampage inside your hospital.

Tsunade never had qualms about anything. She didn’t give a fuck. Unless you killed her people. She got the fucker who blew Kuchi to pieces quite good, there’s no way that asshole is still breathing.

She doesn’t know how long she lies there. The room has only one widow – intensive care unit, second floor, west side, room 28 – and the sun had almost set when she first opened her eyes. It’s dark now, maybe you can see the stars from the Hokage monument tonight.

They were out that night, when Tsunade invited her to share her bath in the onsen. She was young then and naïve, assuming that Senju Tsunade needed a bodyguard for a simple visit in the hot springs.

The barked laugh that escapes her dry lips is a horrible sound in the quiet of the room. The one that follows it is almost a sob.

It’s been five years but now she remembers as if it was yesterday: herself naïve and confused, blushing and with fumbling hands, and the Hokage cackling, confident, leading her in a dance she didn’t think she would enjoy. The stars were beautiful that day, thousands of tiny lights in the sky.

Truth be told it isn’t her fondest memory of her Hokage. Playing around is fine and good but Akira is a shinobi. Kunoichi. When she ran Tsunade through with her katana in their first spar, now _that_ is a fine memory. It got a her a broken shoulder and a concussion, but that one look of surprise, of respect for her skill, was worth it.

_Your life didn’t start with me and it won’t end with me._

“I know,” she slurs to the empty room, her voice rough from disuse and bawling.

Tsunade always told them. Loyalty can’t be bought, it can only be earned. She earned theirs – but now she is dead. Dead as Yakumo and Kuchi, and maybe Eiko as well.

They died for loyalty and right now it seems the easier route. Akira has a life ahead of her still, a life without her Hokage, without her squad, her family, an empty life. It’s a life that she’ll have to fill again, fill with something but she has no idea with what.

An unmistakable squeak resounds through the room when the door opens.

Akira doesn’t move a muscle, doesn’t make a sound, but still the person comes inside. Five steps, heels clicking on the stone floor, the sound of the folded cloth of a kimono moving to allow movement. She doesn’t have to turn her head to know that it’s Shizune.

They stare at each other, dark eyes into dark eyes. If Akira’s face and build didn’t have an unfortunate but entirely incidental resemblance to the Uchiha they could pass for sisters. Shizune has almost the same height as her, the same body type, similar dark eyes and dark hair. They are what, seven years apart in age?

She has nothing to hide from Shizune whose eyes are red-rimmed, sunken in and dim with grief – Akira doubts that her own look much different.

It takes effort to lift her left hand, the one without the IV needle on the back of the hand, but the other woman meets her halfway, warm fingers closing around Akira’s cold ones.

“Eiko?” she rasps.

Shizune shakes her head mutely. She expected nothing else, but the truth of it still feels like a senbon directly to the heart.

“Who?” Shinzune finally asks.

This time it’s Akira who shakes her dead. The motion makes her feel vaguely sick but she ignores it. The morphine must be beginning to wear off.

“I don’t know,” she answers honestly.

The other woman nods. “Kakashi will be here soon, he always checks on you after he closes the office for the night. It’s… not going well.”

Akira understands. The Hokage will have questions and he’ll expect her to answer them. The conclusion is only logical. She’s the only who survived, for better or for worse – the others went to their graves out of loyalty and she will take the truth to hers for the same reason.

Her life didn’t start with Tsunade and it didn’t end with her either, but she’ll still honor her will till the end of her days.

“I’m sorry, Shizune.” She doesn’t know where it comes from, but it’s the truth. It was her duty to protect Senju Tsunade, a duty that she made her own, and ultimately she failed. Tsunade is dead and now they are alone, both of them.

Shizune leans down and presses her forehead against their joined hands. Akira turns her head to the side and presses it into the pillow, letting her tears soak the linens.

“I know, Akira,” Shizune says, her voice soft and broken. “I know.”

They break away from each other slowly, carefully, as if one wrong movement could tear them apart. The second the other woman’s fingers leave hers, Akira starts to feel cold again. She isn’t sure when she’ll truly feel warm again.

When the door opens again Shizune is reading her heart-rate and pulse from the monitor that shows her vital signs. She gave her some more morphine too, enough to keep her lucid while also keeping the pain at bay, and Akira is glad for it. She needs to have her wits about her for what is coming.

Hatake Kakashi looks only slightly better than Shizune and his hair needs a wash. He takes one long look at Akira. Their eyes meet, but she can’t read him – never had to.

“Shizune,” he mutters, breaking eye contact with her to look at the former Hoakge’s assistant. “Go.”

She does and leaves them alone in the room.

The Hokage’s voice is guarded when he addresses her, as if she is the enemy. Akira can empathize. “Identify yourself, shinobi.”

Shizune didn’t have the time to get her some water and so Akira’s throat is still dry as the desert of Wind Country, her voice rusty. “Masamori Akira, Konohagakure Ninja Registration ID 012449.”

Her answer throws him off balance, she can see it in the way the muscles on his neck tense for a second. It’s a minimal thing and hard to see in the cold light of the neon lamp, but a big tell for a kage. He must be more run down than she thought.

A Ninja Registration Number is only assigned to those shinobi who are legal residents of the country they are working for. To have a Konoha number you either need to be born and raised in Fire Country or to have legally changed your alliance to it through a tedious application process. Black Ops work isn’t listed under your Ninja ID – in no country. It would create too big a problem with file clearance otherwise.

“What were the IDs of your comrades?” Hatake Kakashi is smart. He knows that her ID is some sort of scam, but he should also know that the only people in Konoha who are required to know the ID numbers of their team members are jounin sensei.

“I don’t know, Hokage-sama,” Akira replies easily. She has no qualms about lying to his face.

“What were you doing in Iwagakure?” he finally asks.

There it is, the question she was waiting for. Shizune knew better than to ask. Tsunade never told her the whole truth and she never asked because she knows that there are some things that are better kept in the dark. The Hokage has no qualms about demanding an answer however.

She looks straight into his cold, dark eyes and again wonders what he is thinking behind this mask of his. “I can’ tell you.”

“I am your Hokage.”

Such a simple sentence, really. He says it as if he has to remind her who she is supposed to be loyal to. Akira almost rasps out another laugh. It was never the hat which now sits on his head that she was devoted to.

“And so was Tsunade.” The words are nothing but a distraction, but it’s a solid one, one that builds on the legal nightmare that comes with the fact that for the last two years there were two living Hokage within Konohagakure.

Hatake knows that, of course. A kage’s word is law. The system wasn’t designed to have multiple of them alive at the same time. A new one is supposed to replace the old one after their death – ironically it was Konoha who came up with this solution to prevent this exact situation of split loyalties, and more ironically they so far were the only ones to break with it.

He doesn’t look angry exactly, more like a man who bit into a lemon knowing that it would be sour… _resigned_ is the best she can describe the expression on his face.

“Senju Tsunade traveled to Iwagakure, three times a year, to visit Meian Shizuka for a _social call_ ,” he summarizes, sounding nearly amused for some reason. “That’s what you are telling me?”

“Hokage-sama.” Akira nods politely. “That’s what Tsunade told you.”

It’s a guess, but Akira has come far as a ninja because she is perspective. What she told the Hokage wasn’t news to him, it was confirmation on something he’d already known.

“Who attacked you?” he eventually asks. She has seen the same looks he wears in Tsunade’s amber eyes often enough to know what it means: it’s a promise. A promise of pain and destruction upon those who dared to harm what is _his_. Akira approves.

When she opens her mouth to answer only a crooked noise escapes. It doesn’t hurt, the morphine took care of that, but she falls into a coughing fit nonetheless, unable to stop the muscles in her chest and throat from constricting. There’s that pull in her stomach again and she doesn’t need to be a genius to know that she’s fucked up badly.

Deft hands loosen the bonds on her left wrist and then a cool hand lifts her head off the bed while the Hokage puts a water bottle to her mouth with the other. Akira drinks from it greedily, pushing back the coughs to get some well-needed water down her gullet.

“Thanks,” she mumbles when she sinks back into the pillows, the Hokage stepping away from her bed as she releases her other hand of the bindings. Sitting up would make her feel better, but going by the bandages that cover her whole torso it’s a bad idea – ah, Tsunade has trained her well indeed. Never go against your doctor’s instructions.

She takes a deep breath, uncaring for her damaged organs. Then another.

“There were seven of them.” Their faces are clear in her head. She won’t forget them. “It was an ambush, explosion tags hidden in the ground. Perfect set-up, no tells, done by the Iwa-guy. Old, veteran of two wars at least. Their sensor too, if I’d have to bet. Tsunade killed him, put a nice punch into his chest.”

There is a satisfied, _proud_ , grin tugging at her lips. Her master did that; blonde, small, petite Tsunade who could kill a man trice her mass with a finger. Tsunade, who is dead. It hurts, it hurts so so much.

“The blast killed Yakumo, our genjutsu specialist. Kuchi, our tracker, lost an arm.” For a moment the world stood still, she couldn’t hear, couldn't see, deafened and blinded by the explosion. When her senses came back there was Tsunade, standing over Kuchi, Eiko beside them, a storm already starting to form above them.

Akira stares that the ceiling of the hospital room and only sees a forest. She sees the moment they killed Tsunade.

“Their leader was young, about the age of your students. Fire Kekkei Genkai, can kindle his chakra into fire. Brown hair, grey eyes, average build,” she recounts, her voice shaking. _He will die_. She’ll find him and then she’ll put her katana through his belly, his dick, his hands, his eyes, and then she’ll watch him die.

“The others?” Hatake’s voice pulls her from her thought. There is nothing but a white ceiling above her head, she’s in the Konohagakure hospital after all.

“Two girls, one about his age, the other a bit younger than me. The younger is blonde, ninjutsu user, fast, the other one has a medic background, used a chakra scalpel, but she won’t make it much longer.” A nick with her poisoned katana, that’s all it took. The low dose will draw her death out, will make her sick first before she’ll die. Akira isn’t vicious as a rule, but there’s a certain satisfaction at the thought she won’t deny.

She clears her throat, aware of the Hokage’s dark eyes on her person. Akira is drained, _numb_. Tsunade is gone together with the others and she feels… she _feels_. Vengeance is an option, to give in to the wrath in the back of her mind, to set forth to kill them all, but while it would give her a purpose it won’t be able to fill the aching hole in her heart. She’s tired.

“The last three are a squad, all dark-haired, face masks, Hot Spring dialect. Skilled, they must have been working together for years… they killed Tsunade.”

“They shouldn’t have been able to.”

A humorless laugh bubbles its way up her damaged throat. “All seven against Tsunade and she’d have killed them one after the other… but she wasn’t alone, was she? Miserable guards, the lot of us, they took us off one by one. They knew that she’d have an opening eventually, protecting our sorry asses.”

The stricken look on his face pushes her over the edge and suddenly Akira is laughing like a mad woman, panting for breath, tears running down her cheeks, until her bursts of laughter become sobs of pain.

Later she can’t remember when exactly she lost consciousness.

 

~

 

For once the Hokage looks like he got a few good hours of sleep in the night, which is a surprise to Kazue considering that Uzumaki came back yesterday and the unknown kunoichi woke up sometime in the night. If she’d have to hazard a guess she’d say that Haruno forced him into bed.

They are alone this time. Only the Council Members and Hatake, no Jounin Commander and no candidate Hokage.

The file of the kunoichi is on the table in front of Murakami, who is reading it with eyes like a hawk and a wrinkled forehead. Shirakawa already went through it and he didn’t look any more pleased than the other man.

“Inzuka Kuchi’s file is no revelation, unfortunately. The last note in it is of his reassignment to work under the Godaime.” The former ANBU strategist drums his fingers on the file of said man currently opened to the page that displays a picture of his face. He was handsome enough, with light brown hair, wide, dark eyes and a grin on his lips.

“Genma is looking for the dead woman right now,” Hatake answers, looking more alert without the deep rings under his eyes. “Her body provides enough information to identify her, it’s a matter of time. We won’t find the last one. Genjutsu specialist, blood type A, maybe called Yakumo. It’s too vague.”

Kazue clicks her tongue in displeasure. “She should be able to describe him once she wakes up again, but yes, unless his looks stood out I think we should put his identity on low priority.”

“I agree,” Shirakawa says and nods to her.“ The chances that they were planted are miniscule, Senju-sama would have seen through it.”

Murakami passes her the file of their wounded kunoichi then, grunting when he slides it across the table. Various parts of it are highlighted, the most notable of them being her graduation and Special Jounin promotion dates.

Twenty-seven years old, birthday in November, blood type A, kenjutsu specialist, poison expert, height, weight, eye color, hair color, it’s all there. Graduated at eleven, a bit over fifteen years ago, chuunin promotion half a year before the death of the Sandaime, special jounin promotion ten months after Tsunade became Hokage.

“You think it’s fabricated?” Kazue looks first at Murakami, then at Shirakawa.

“The year before she supposedly graduated I got my genin team. Uchiha Itachi was in their age group,” Yoshinori explains and a short silence settles over the room at the mention of the name. “He overshadowed everyone in that year and the ones above and below… still, I don’t remember her. Looks enough like an Uchiha to draw attention, that one, could be a bastard even. I wouldn’t have forgotten her face.”

“The records says that she was overlooked because of a low amount of chakra, but caught the eye of kenjutsu expert Gekkou Komachi who sponsored her for chuunin,” Shirakawa adds, having memorized the file already. “Which is convenient since he died during the invasion from Suna and Oto. His younger brother and only living family had been killed by Suna-nin only a few days prior. No witnesses left alive that you could ask about her.”

The Hokage studies them, unblinking, still as a statue. Kazue knows that he is thinking, has been a Council Member long enough now to know his mannerisms, and so they all wait for his verdict.

“What about the ID?” he finally asks.

It’s a valid question – one that Kazue asked herself the moment the suspicion of a sham was first raised. She knows the answer to it however, knows because Masato and Atsuko discussed it once on a rare, quiet night in Nagare, 33 years ago.

“Placeholder IDs.”

All three man turn their eyes to her, dark grey, light grey, light brown in that order. Murakami plays with the pen in his hand impatiently. Hatake and Shirakawa look intrigued.

“Data about genin is recorded on file from the year before they graduate, but Registration Numbers officially are only assigned at graduation. Since all Academy files have a chuunin and higher clearance however, they need to be stored in the Archives. For convenience sake they are given temporary numbers that aren’t assigned yet and will correlate with the Registration Numbers they would obtain upon graduation...” she trails off to see if they are following.

“If a student doesn’t graduate their number will remain unclaimed?” As usual Shirakawa Takuma is a quick thinker. “How long will their files remain in storage?”

“They are stored for a mandatory ten years. After that the number is void since the increasing Ninja Registration Numbers prevent its re-use. Also, there are additional open numbers saved for early graduates without an assigned number or students who didn’t go through the official curriculum.”

Nothing about that is a secret – in fact any Academy teacher knows how Ninja Registration Numbers are assigned – but since the Hokage has to issue each number personally upon graduation of a genin they are the only person capable of smuggling fake ninja into the registry.

“Not a word of this to anyone,” Kakashi orders, as if he really has to remind them. “We will find the dead woman’s file, Inuzuka Kuchi is beyond suspicion, Yakumo was blown apart. Masamori’s story stands up to scrutiny well enough.”

_A Hokage is beyond doubt._

Senju Tsunade is dead, killed on the way back from a private visit to Iwa no one knows the details of. The Tsuchikage isn’t to be trusted, a good number of the force is mumbling about retribution on the quiet. They can’t have Tsunade in doubt now, not about something as grave as secretly implanting foreign persons into the corps.

“What about the investigation?” Shirakawa has taken off his glasses and is rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

The Hokage grunts and leans back in his chair. All other files are spread in front of him, the ones Torture and Intelligence compiled about the three Kusa-nin as well as the whole squad from Iwa.

“Meian Shizuka has promised us a squad of our choosing, full disclosure. She’s not slighting us on the protocol at least,” Murakami mutters, and for how little Kazue thinks of Rock-nin she still has to agree with him. “No Inuzuka. A Hyuuga then, and at least a Nara or a Yamanaka. An Aburame too, just because me can.”

“Hyuuga Yuuto,” Shirakawa volunteers immediately. His knowledge of the rooster is comprehensive despite being out of the active force for years. “Disciplined, perspective, imposing. A break from Anbu duty would do him some good as well.”

He shares a look with Hatake, then the Hokage’s dark eyes fix on Kazue, staring at her as if Hyuuga Yuuto is supposed to be her expertise somehow. She bites down the nasty remark that is already on her tongue. _I haven’t been a member of any clan for over two decades, Hokage-sama_.

“As you wish,” she agrees instead, inclining her head to Hatake Kakashi. “Aburame Shinobu. His genin team all graduated in the last chuunin exams, he’ll work well with a diverse group.”

Kazue never liked the clan’s tendencies to keep to themselves and their own. It created an unnecessary rift between parts of the corps and supporting the ones like Shinobu, who stand out in teamwork even with non-clan ninja, is her favored approach to treating this particular problem. Let them see that being a stuck-up traditionalist won’t get them promoted as high as they’d like.

With a motion of his hand the Rokudaime motions for Shirakawa to take notes.

“Genma will lead the team,” he announces and is met with a row of nods in approval. “I want Nomura Tenten on it. No Nara, we don’t have any to spare right now and I won’t send Shikamaru.”

Having Katsu’s boy being the team leader is a smart move. The position of Jounin Commander carries weight, so they will send theirs to Rock like Rock send Kurotsuchi into Konohagakure. Having the Nara Clan Head there as well would have been too high profile however, not when all this is still under the guise of them having decent relations with Iwa. The girl however…

“Nomura, Hokage-sama, are you sure this is wise?” As usual Murakami does not bother to hide the note of contempt in his voice when he mentions the name.

All three of them know that their Hokage took a liking to the young woman. Father a retired chuunin turned blacksmith and weapon seller, mother died in the Kyuubi attack, no siblings. There was nothing special about her until Hatake promoted her right after the war to send her to the capital to supervise clean-up – which she did a remarkable job at. Still, his continued interest in her has Murakami on edge for a reason.

He turns his brown eyes to Takuma for backup, but really the man should know better. Shirakawa will not turn down the only non-clan shinobi nominated so far for such a prestigious mission.

“She has worked well with the Hyuuga in the past, I see no reason to disapprove of her,” the white-haired elder responds.

For once Kazue doesn’t even have to give an opinion. Unless they would both back Murakami, there is no way the Hokage will back down from his choice.

“Of course,” Yoshinori eventually mutters, realizing that he has been overruled. “For the last position… Yamanaka Ino, I would say. It’s time that she proves herself to the village, this back and forth game has to stop.”

Shirakawa looks actually surprised – he wouldn’t be if he understood Murakami better, but to do so we would need to comprehend the mindset of the clans, of those born and raised to serve their village. He won’t ever truly get it however. To know what it means to be a clan child you have to _be_ a clan child.

Suddenly Hatake appears tired again, or maybe he was just better at hiding it after some decent hours of sleep. He doesn’t to want send the Yamanaka heir. His morals are his grace, but they are also what weighs him down.

“She is an heir, not the clan head,” Kazue says softly, but with no less conviction in her words for it. “She can be replaced. There are three healthy children on her uncle’s side of the family. The girl needs to prove her worth.”

They can’t afford to have qualms about sending their soldiers out into enemy territory. 

“So be it,” Hatake mutters, lips pressed together tightly beneath his mask.

 _Would you have saved him?_ Whenever she looks at the man, Sakumo’s son, with the same grey hair as his father, the same dark eyes filled with more emotion then some say a kage should show… Kazue wonders. She asks herself the same question over and over again, knowing that it is futile but unable to stop her rampant thoughts.

_Would you have sent him back to me?_


	4. Part 1: Chapter 4 - The Journey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first people are on the move. We're past the halfway point on the first part now and both the pace and the timeline will be picking up. There's plot incoming and more relation between the POVs and of course more culture and headcanon. I'm actually gonna use all the history of the Naruto world I know.

“Tsuchikage-sama.” Himaru closes the door and bows deep.

At sixteen he still hasn’t hit a growth spurt yet, his face only reaching up to her chest. His cheeks are full and child-like and the jounin flak jacket makes his frame look thinner than he actually is, hiding the muscles that mark him as more shinobi than child. If it weren’t for the serious look in his golden eyes even Shizuka would have been tempted to label him the latter.

He doesn’t need prompt to take a seat, they are past such formalities. She has seen him bury his mother, then his grandmother, has watched his official inauguration as clan head when he was thirteen – if there is one person in Iwagakure who wants the hat less than she does, it is Himaru.

“You are moving out?” he asks once he is seated, his gaze taking in her attire, the lavishness of the kimono that is so unlike her.

“The funeral is scheduled for tomorrow evening.” She says it mechanically, intentionally focusing her attention away from the crime scene and the report of the fight that took place. “I will have to arrive in Konohagakure by midday at the latest and stay overnight for a day or two.”

The last time Shizuka spent a night inside the walls of Konoha was nineteen years ago to the day and she can’t not see the irony in it. She left the village after the funeral of one Hokage, to come back half a lifetime later to the funeral of another.

“When will Kurotsuchi be back?” Himaru is smart. The expression on this tanned face turns serious the instant he understands what she is getting at, but still he asks, holds his ground.

 _It will only be a few days_ , she tells herself when confronted with his obvious discomfort. The chances that a major incident will take place during the that time are almost non-existent, but still… he is sixteen. He is a clan head and a jounin but both titles were award to him through necessity, something Shizuka is well aware of. Himaru is too young, just as she was too young when they pronounced her genin and sent her as a glorified hostage to Konoha.

There is no one else though, no one she trusts enough to leave her village’s safety in their hands. Ikeno maybe, but he is Black Ops, as tainted as they all are.

“In three days, less if Kurotsuchi is pushing the pace as I expect her to. They’ll stop at the border to brief Okajima and then directly return to Iwagakure,” she explains, deliberately omitting that she isn’t sure how long _she_ will be out of Iwagakure.

Even though he is anxious, hands shaking slightly where he has placed them in his lap, there is nothing but determination in his eyes. The boy returns her gaze steadily, unblinking.

Three years and the correct motivation and he could give Kurotsuchi a run for her money. Himaru, no matter how he got into the position he’s in, has a natural talent for being a shinobi, and while he lacks a certain ruthlessness he has the drive to become one of their best.

“What about Konoha? There will be an investigation, right?” he eventually asks and Shizuka can see the gears in his head turn at the thought.

“A invitation was issued and accepted.” It was only a formality, of course. If your kage dies in another’s country any shinobi worth their salt will go and make sure with their own eyes that there was no foul play at work – and of course there usually _is_ , which is why they are in such a precarious situation right now.

“When?” Himaru has interlaced his fingers in front of himself, elbows resting on her desk. His hands are no longer trembling.

“Hatake declined my proposal for them to accompany Kurotsuchi’s squad and the Kusa-nin home. All of Konohagakure will attend the funeral and the investigation team be dispatched directly after it is over. Let the Hokage suit himself, it’s easier for us that way.”

Her memory of Hatake Kakashi is that of an unkempt teenager, hair wild, eyes cold and whatever part of himself he could hide covered by black fabric – Shizuka couldn’t relate as a child though she understands all too well now, has adopted a similar style of hiding herself behind layers of dark cloth. Shadows are hard to see in the dark after all.

Himaru relaxes visibly at the news that he won’t have to host foreign delegates in the three days he will be running their village.

“Anything else, Tsuchikage-sama?”

On him she hates it, this forced formality, but she can’t fault him for it. He cares for her, maybe more than is good for him, and he can sit opposite her in the office without a care, but he’ll never not bend over backwards for her in his politeness.

They have an audience. Always. _Let them hear_ , is what he doesn’t say. Fushichou Himaru doesn’t ever want to be Tsuchikage and the safest way to achieve that goal is to never let anyone question his endorsement of her person.

Such a clever young man.

“Kitao and Miyagawa can brief you on whatever necessary, my brother is to take a _mandatory_ week off before he takes another mission and if you are in need of council talk to my sensei…” It’s been twenty year since Meian Tsubasa taught her, but still she thinks of him as a teacher instead of an uncle. Curiously he takes it as an honor, even though Haku has not yet learnt to stop making fun of the title.

With practiced ease she stands up from her chair, takes off the brown-brimmed hat of the Tsuchikage and places it on the table between them. Himaru immediately follows her example and straightens only to give her one last, formal bow.

The sun is already past the horizon, she doesn’t have much more time to linger.

“Oh, and there is an appointment about a minor inheritance dispute scheduled for the day after tomorrow that I didn’t have the time to cancel,” she says as if on an afterthought, keeping her face carefully neutral to not tip him off. “I expect you to handle the matter satisfactorily.”

“Of course,” he instantly agrees, golden eyes looking at her curiously.

 _Gullible_ , is her first thought, but she has to admit that it is unfair to the boy because it is her presence that puts him at ease enough to show his true self like this. Himaru trusts her, he is loyal to her, he’d die for her.

Shizuka squelches that thought before it has a chance to run rampant in her head.

“Take care.”

She has vanished in a _shunshin_ before he is able to say anything more, reappearing on the soil of the street directly in front of the Tsuchikage Tower.

People stare, but that’s precisely what she wants. They need to see her, the shinobi of Iwagakure need to be reassured that it’s their best interest she has at heart. _Watch me. I am your Tsuchikage, I am your pillar, steady as a mountain, ready to dispose of any who dare oppose us._

Whoever murdered Tsunade, she will find them. They will pay.

Taking a senbon from her sleeve she nicks the pad of her right index finger with practiced ease. The tiny drop of blood that forms is all she needs and the Tsuchikage slams her hand into the dirt beneath her feet.

“Kuchiyose no jutsu!”

Passerby scatter when Kiba appears beside her in a cloud of smoke. His fur is shaggy as always, light grey at the belly and almost black on his lower legs and along his spine. Yellow eyes stare at her and her summons bares his teeth in a bad imitation of a human’s smile.

“Took you long enough,” he rumbles and watches, amused, as the civilians in the vicinity shy back at the inhuman quality of his voice.

Instead of answering verbally she tilts her head and gives him a look. Kiba grunts unhappily but leaves it at that, ears twitching to take in the noise of the crowd that has gathered in their periphery. His expression remains calm however, telling her that she isn’t the target of whatever gossip in being spread.

With a light-footed jump Shizuka is sitting on his back, between his muscular neck and the bones of his shoulder blades. The grey coat is soft beneath her fingers and she scratches the side of his neck absentmindedly.

Then they are off, his powerful legs propelling Kiba through the streets of Iwagakure with ease.

It is a display of power, plain and simple. She didn’t need to call on her summons in the middle of the village, right beneath her tower. Shizuka is proficient enough with the Body Flicker Technique to have crossed the border of Iwagakure within thirty seconds of her departure from the tower, but it would have been a silent exit.

Being Black Ops is second nature to her. Unseen, unnoticed, covered by darkness and shadows. That’s her preferred method of operation. A kage however cannot afford that luxury.

She needs to be seen and seen they are, by everyone who wants to have a look, the black-haired Tsuchikage in an uncharacteristic white kimono riding her monstrous summons of a wolf – never let it be said that she doesn’t have a sense for drama when it is demanded.

“Will the pup be alright?” Kiba asks once they have passed the boundary of the village.

“Haku and Tsubasa-sensei are taking care of him,” she answers, ignoring the spike of dread she feels at leaving Keiji behind. “Seiji will be back with Kurotsuchi in three days, then he’s the best protected child in all of Iwagakure.”

The wolf huffs in what passes for his form of a snort. “I meant the one with the bronze mane, not yours.”

“He’s not…” She lets her words trail off, aware of how little Kiba cares for the human sentiment of an age of majority. For him they are either pups, children who need protecting from the pack, adolescents who can defend themselves but not their pack, or adults who can defend both.

An insistent bark reminds her that he still expects an answer.

“It’s only three days. There is no one else to pick, and no matter what you think of Himaru, he has a good head on him,” Shizuka finally says, not in the mood for an argument over her temporary replacement.

He growls, clearly unhappy, but leaves it at that. They both know that there is a difference between animal instinct and human morale that prevents them from ever agreeing on some topics.

As they move south the scenery is already starting to change. The mountains Rock Country is famous for cover less than a fourth of its overall territory, most of it being made up of dense pine forests and rocky patches of barren terrain.

“You talked to the informants?”

“I did,” Kiba affirms and leaps over a bolder trice his height, skidding to a halt in the muddy terrain on the other side and then taking a sharp turn to avoid a particularly deadly slope. Shizuka grips his coat hard, her legs pressed tightly to his flanks. “Afraid of me, all three of them. They aren’t dumb, they _know_ that I’m not human no matter what form I wear.”

This is the first time Shizuka has left Iwagakure in over a year.

Before, as the head of Iwa’s Black Ops division, she used to be in an out of the village on a weekly basis. Her network took a decade to be completed, and while it isn’t in immediate danger of collapse right now she is acutely aware that her sabbatical was too long.

Iwa needed her. For stability, for _peace_.

She thought that she would have time to get back to her work slowly now that order is established. A few days here and there, travels first to the closet places and then increasingly outwards – to give Kurotsuchi time to get accustomed to ruling in measured doses, to still have time for her son, to keep the balance which she had so meticulously created.

Tsunade is dead, to be buried on the morrow, and her carefully built control of the situation feels like it’s slipping away from beneath the fingers.

Kiba growls from deep within his chest, body tense beneath her hands. His behavior mirrors her emotions, as it has since he was a pup and she a child of seven. That knowledge at least is comforting.

“The mark?” she asks him, leaning forward towards his left ear so he will hear the words against the wind that has picked up around them.

“An arrow, pointing to the ground, on the fifth tree from the road marker on the eastern route to Makita,” Kiba confirms, his voice carrying over the brewing storm easily. “It wasn’t hard to find, smelled of you still. If she sees it she will come.”

 _She will_. Kuroda Rei might be a missing-nin, but she owes Shizuka a dept.

 

~

 

When Akira wakes up a second time it’s morning. She’s restrained to the bed again, but now she’s lucid enough that she could have freed herself from her bonds easily she she’d chosen to do so. Instead she stares up, at the ceiling she doesn’t see.

There are dark clouds, harbingers of the deadly potential of Eiko’s Kekkei Genkai. The canopy of the forest bends under the wind that tears at it, leaves and pebbles dancing in the storm. Beneath her body is the hard, unforgiving soil of Rock Country. The air smells of ozone and smoke; a sweet, rotten, foul scent. _They are burning Tsunade_.

She trashes at her bonds, dark eyes wild and unseeing, not thinking about containing her strength because she isn’t thinking, is only feeling – she’s in the forest, slowly crawling towards Tsunade who is broken and dead but they are burning her and Akira can’t let them.

With a loud crash her left hands comes free, tearing the metal bar she was restrained to out of the bed frame.

Her body jerks forward on instinct but then the pain she hasn’t felt before is back in an instant, hitting her like a blow to the stomach, forcing her body to crumble back into itself and her eyes to go wide in agony. A strangled moan escapes her lips.

A second later the door to the room is pushed open and someone rushes to her beside, but she can’t spare a glance to check, is too preoccupied with breathing to care. _In. Out. In and out._ It repeats like a mantra in her head, occupies her thoughts completely and she is glad for it because it spares her the pain of the memories for the moment.

“Masamori-san, can you hear me?” a tentative voice asks. _Haruno Sakura_.

Quickly she signs an affirmative with her left hand, the one the metal bar is still hanging from. She doesn’t trust her voice.

“Are you in pain?” After the initial shock her voice has turned professional. Strong hands push her arms down and work at undoing the clasp around her wrist. Akira lets it happen.

Of course she’s in pain. The agony in her stomach she can live with; the memory of watching Tsunade being killed will hunt her for the rest of her life. _I failed her_. She thought herself among the best: strong, both mentally and physically, prepared for any situation, ready to die for the Fifth Hokage.

“When is the funeral? Did I miss it?” Her voice is rough from disuse. Talking hurts.

She finally looks at Haruno. The girl’s green eyes are sunken in, her skin paler than Akira remembers it being. There is grief in her too.

Haruno doesn’t meet her eyes when she first checks the mobility of the left wrist and then moves on to unbind her other hand and feet, inspecting them as well. Akira lifts her hands to inspect them, dark eyes staring at new wounds, old scars and hard calluses. Her hands aren’t shaking. A shinobi’s hands can’t shake; they are deadly tools, honed and reliable – she wishes they would shake, that there’d be a visible sign of how broken she feels.

“The funeral will be tomorrow evening,” Haruno eventually replies once she has assured herself that all of Akira’s fine motor skills are still working properly. She goes on to check her vital signs from the equipment that’s connected to her chest. “If your condition remains stable you’ll be allowed to go. We can arrange a wheelchair for you, one of the nurses will wheel you to the cemetery.”

Akira remains silent while the young woman guides her through a series of tests that are supposed to tell how adept her body is at handling the damage that was inflicted on it. She moves as instructed, squeezes Haruno’s hand, turns her head, lets her point a light at her eyes, wiggles her toes, lifts her legs off the mattress.

 _A wheelchair_. They want to put her into a wheelchair, to cart her around like a bag of rice.

She remembers Kitsuchi standing at his wife’s funeral covered in bandages from the neck down, tall and grim and proud, his small daughter and the Third Tsuchikage beside him.

No matter the circumstances of her allegiance to the Leaf and their personal relationship, Tsunade was her Hokage. If she can get on her own two feet then Akira will stand for her last rites. Her honor as a shinobi demands nothing less.

“I want food.” She needs her physical strength for the funeral, that’s for sure. Her muscles didn’t start to decline yet, but it won’t be long now. “How many days was I unconscious?”

The young woman frowns in displeasure, but she holds the medic’s gaze.

What does the girl expect her to do? Sleep? Cry? Her body feels heavy, exhausted, recovering from the excessive damage still. Maybe that’s what she should do: lie back in her bed, close her eyes, dream of the world how it was a few weeks ago. It would be easy… easy until she’d open her eyes, look up and be in that clearing in Iwa again. How many more times will she watch them die?

“You were attacked six days ago,” Haruno mumbles, avoiding her eyes. She opens her mouth to say more, but closes it again before the words can leave her lips.

There’s no comfort she can give the girl. _Do you wanna know how she died?_ The words remain in her head because they are cruel, born of her own grief and despair. _She died for me, did you know?_

In twenty-seven years alive this is the first time she’s truly experienced _loss_. Her village she left without feeling even a drop of guilt, her parents and brother she missed less and less the more she realized the fundamental difference between them and herself, Munenori-sensei she mourned for what he had thaught her. Now however… Akira remembers Yakumo’s silly card tricks, Kuchi’s feral smile, the joy in Eiko’s eyes when they danced in the rain, right after the war had ended. She remembers Tsunade laughing in her face when she’d declared that she wanted to be a Konoha-nin.

 _Haughty one, aren’t you?_ Yes, she is. Arrogant enough to have believed in their superiority to any enemy that could cross their path. Her master knew better.

She flinches when a cautious hand is place on her shoulder.

Haruno Sakura’s green eyes are full of sympathy. This time it’s Akira who avoids her gaze; she looks at the ceiling instead, waiting for the moment the clearing will come back to haunt her.

“Shizune said that I should be gentle with you,” she tells her, a small, kind smile on her lips. “I think I understand… she was your family, too.”

A sob tears from her throat. She closes her eyes, fists her hands into the bed sheets, bites her lip until she can taste blood. _They all were_. Tsunade and Yakumo and Eiko and Kuchi – and maybe that’s wrong, to love your teammates like that, like family, but they gave her a true home and she can’t not be grateful for it still.

“Thank you,” she whispers, licking the blood from her cracked lips. “Will you bring me something to eat, please?”

The other kunoichi taps an affirmative against her shoulder and Akira listens as she retreats from the bed and then makes her way towards the door, closing it behind herself almost soundlessly.

Only when she has heard her footsteps echo down the corridor does she allow herself to cry.

 

~

 

Yuzu is the third biggest town in the Land of Hot Water and its harbor is bustling with activity just an hour before noon. Ships are being loaded with cargo everywhere and Taiki can feel the worker’s urgency as he watches them.

In less than two months winter will have frozen all ports along the coasts of southern Kumo, brining a halt to the trade on water that will last for a good three months.

Trade and tourism are the only means of income Yu has. Their fields produce just enough crops to feed their own people, their forests are sparse, their coast is largely barren. The hot springs are what draws people to their country and their fortunate location between Kumo, Konoha and Kiri what brings the trade that keeps all those alive who can’t live off foreign visitors.

Once, before the Third War, Yuzu was Kiri. The whole Kobushi peninsula was theirs, their only foothold on the continent proper.

“Welcome home, Kisaragi-san,” the captain interrupts his thoughts.

A second later her lips curl into a slow, sincere smile. She turns her body away from the ship’s rail to face the middle-ages man with thick arms and a broad nose. He instantly returns her smile and she takes a step closer, letting his body shield her from the breeze, craning her neck to be able to look into his warm brown eyes.

“Finally, captain,” she tells him, sending another longing glance at the harbor and finally tearing her gaze away with a sigh. “I have sure missed it. Three years is a long time.”

“That it is,” he agrees with a rumbling voice. “I’ll dare hope you’ll find that brother of yours, even if he doesn’t sound worth the trouble.”

She shrugs faintly, not entirely able to hide the worry she feels when reminded of her youngest sibling. Still, she tries to smile again for the captain because she has grown a little fond of him during their journey from Kirigakure all the way here.

“Thank you,” she answers, almost shyly. A bit of color rises in her cheeks when they eyes meet, and rightfully so, as Captain Shirahama even when he was never less than perfectly courteous with her, kept her up longer than intended every night they’d spent at sea. “I’ll… it was a pleasure making your acquaintance, Captain Shirahama. I do hope we’ll meet again.”

“Pleasure was all mine.” He grins down at her, one hand instinctively taking a hold of her upper arm when the sudden stop of the ship makes her stagger.

Her kimono requires careful movement and so she takes her time to put her hands on his shoulders, the sleeves of the midnight blue garment sliding down and exposing parts of her arms. There is kohl around her eyes and rouge on her lips that leaves a barely-there imprint when she presses a kiss to his left cheek.

He looks a little startled at first, but the grin comes back to his face when some of his crew who have seen their interaction cheer from where they are docking the ship to harbor.

“You’re always welcome on the _Nami no Hana_ , Kisaragi-san.”

It’s a bold declaration, delivered in a boasting voice, but she can see the truth of it in his eyes. The captain has grown fond of her, too.

After that he takes her hand in his gingerly and leads her down the gangway, one of the sailors carrying her luggage to the dock. The other passengers embark behind them, talking excitedly among themselves.

The sky is clear and blue, the sun strong and the breeze soft. Today will be a beautiful late summer day, most likely one of the last of the year.

Taiki’s thoughts however are of a darker nature when he calls over one of the young men loitering around the harbor in search of work. The boy blushes at the sight of him, dark kimono, beautiful face and pinned up hair, but picks up his heavy bag easily enough and leads the way towards a renowned resort Taiki himself has visited a dozen times under various disguises.

As usual the Land of Hot Water brings up a combination of contempt and envy in him, blurring the lines between the two emotions to the point where he can’t tell which of them is the more prominent one.

This land was Kiri once, great and gruesome at the same time.

Now Yu is wealthy and prosperous, but also more insignificant than they have ever been in the last hundred years. They have no force, just a few men and women playing at being ninja, glorified civilians who can walk on trees and water and hold a kunai without cutting themselves.

They are defenseless, _weak_ , but while their weakness disgusts him it also fascinates him. Kirigakure taught him all about weakness: those who can’t defend themselves will die eventually. Still, there is a certain allure to this openness, the fragility of it, like a gorgeous woman offering her throat for you to cut it open.

Kisaragi Mahoro lets herself be ushered into the resort where the clerk running the front desk bends over backwards to adequately accommodate the noble-born widow of a Kirigakure shinobi. He’s smart, he knows money when he sees it.

 _Yes, the lady would like a bath in the hot springs_. She lets herself be pampered as is her wont, with servants seeing to her luggage and her room while a young woman who can’t be a day over sixteen shows her to the changing area and dutifully helps her disrobe. The girl blushes prettily when Kisaragi-san stands in front of her naked, entirely unbothered by the blatant appraisal of her body. Instead she insists on a towel and sinks into the hot waters of the woman’s bath a minute later.

He lets the genjutsu drop completely once the steamy water covers him from the head down.

Without any jewelry or clothing to use as an anchor a fully-body illusion becomes bothersome over time. It takes too much concentration to uphold a perfect image for it to be worthwhile in minor situations like these – Taiki had shed all genjutsu by the evening of the second day on the _Nami no Hana_ and no one had been any wiser for it.

At midday the baths are deserted anyway and for the first time in too long he is blissfully alone. It’s a luxury Taiki has come to cherish. You’re never really alone in Kirigakure.

Later today he’ll need to get out and hire an escort. _Yu-nin_. He makes a face. Their service is as cheap as they are useless, but the pretense has to be kept up and so he’ll endure. A team of chuunin, two seems adequate, from Yuzu all the way to the capital and a horse for himself.

Taiki despises horses, truly, but there are certain things he won’t lower himself to voluntarily, and one of them is to let his person be carried like a sack of rice by a poor excuse for a ninja.

There is the faint sound of female voices, laughter. They approach from the changing area, two young women, rich and carefree, their naked footsteps clearly audible in the silence of the baths. Konoha tourists on vacation in Hot Springs either with their families or husbands.

Mahoro greets them calmly but with an invitingly open face and they both smile at her, immediately including her in their conversation about the younger’s upcoming wedding.


	5. Part 1: Chapter 5 - The Investigation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More wordbuilding! aka all those countries have capitals too, and laws, normal people, and daimyo. It's not a giant free-for-all, there are rules that the main characters actually have to abide by to not get their heads chopped off. Ninja world and everything. Also Shizuka is the easiest to write and Kazue is a bitch but I love her. Same for Kurotsuchi, I adore the girl.

Unlike Konohagakure the protection of the capitol of Fire Country can be best described as lax: samurai guard the various entrances to the city, but there are no measures taken to prevent hostile shinobi from invading nor do the patrols inside of Enko consist of ninja.

It would be a futile endeavor to try to secure the largest city on the continent against shinobi, and so Konoha-nin have limited their attention on the daimyo’s court. Contrary to the city proper it is one of the, maybe _the_ , most well-guarded places Shizuka has ever laid eyes upon. The place is full of ninja; from the obvious guards to the doctor to the kitchen maid every second or third retainer possesses chakra.

She has the urge to explore, to probe those defenses, to find the cracks in the carefully erected wall of bodies, but it’s not why she is here.

Instead she passes the palace and heads west. The sheer mass of _beings_ inside Enko is staggering, their number straining her senses. Without the presence of Kurotsuchi and Seiji, so close together that she had trouble separating them from the distance, Shizuka would be lost in this sea of people.

Already she can feel the headache coming at her temples. It’s a nasty one too and she hurries through the streets, her white funeral kimono hidden behind a dark grey cloak.

Shizuka could walk through a throng of people unnoticed before she was ten. Sometimes – when there were no ninja nearby, when her target was rich but not too rich, when her teacher’s eyes were elsewhere – she’d cut their purses just because she could.

Being the Tsuchikage has robbed her of this, the anonymity.

Now she has to be seen, has to be _recognized_. For others it might have been an honor, but for her it’s a burden, something that goes against her every instinct, that puts her on edge. She has learnt to be comfortable in the shadows, works at her best where she can’t been seen – it was different once, when she was a child, but twenty years later she’s too old to be changed again.

Rock Country bartered her off to Konoha and when Shizuka came back to Iwagakure she was an instant Black Ops candidate. Her father hated it, Tsubasa-sensei judges her for it, her brothers can’t handle it still.

With a grim smile she ducks into a side alley. _Two buildings to the left, second floor_. She climbs the building that overhangs the alley easily, eyes the far-away stars on the night-time sky for a second and then creeps across the rooftops to her destination.

They expect her.

Making sure that no onlookers are present with a quick glance to the closest windows on the adjoining houses she slinks through the open window. The room is dark.

“The frog in the well doesn’t know of the ocean,” Shizuka tells the darkness and regrets that Seiji isn’t with them but on the other end of the building, beyond the courtyard with the rest of the Rock entourage and who she presumes to be the shinobi from Kusa.

When was the last time she saw her youngest brother? Two weeks ago? Three? It’s a tell to how much sleep she has missed that she can’t remember the exact date from the top of her head.

“Shizuka-sama,” Ogata whispers in return. She hears him bow.

Kurotsuchi meanwhile grunts in a way that is not at all appealing or polite. “This is ridiculous,” she adds, clearly disgruntled. “What are we doing here? Iwagakure’s highest ranking ninja, playing hide and seek in the dark in the middle of Enko. My grandfather would’ve never…”

She knows better than to finish the sentence, instead letting the words fade away into the night, the insult clear in its meaning.

No, the Sandaime Tsuchikage never had any need to hide his presence, but that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t have done so for the good of his village. Oonoki put Iwa first and Shizuka can’t do but respect him for it. Sometimes she sees that quality in his granddaughter too, but today isn’t one of those days.

There is a time and a place to assert one’s dominance physically, but this, in the middle of Fire Country’s capital when the Tsuchikage shouldn’t be here in the first place, isn’t it. So she remains silent instead, aware that with her back to the window the other kunoichi can only see her silhouette, aware that Kurotsuchi _knows_ that she doesn’t need to see her to deliver a killing blow.

Ogata shuffles his feet. Outside a pair of drunk men stagger through the street.

_Don’t test me, Kurotsuchi_. Shizuka will beat her again if she has to, but not here, not when Tsunade died on their land and half of Konoha is out for her blood.

“Shizuka-sama,” the woman finally acknowledges.

“Report,” she replies coolly, deigning neither her insurgency nor the eventual submission worth another word. She doesn’t have the time for games like this.

“One of the council members is harmless. Shirakawa, civilian born. He won’t make a move unless there’s concrete proof that Iwa was involved in the murder,” Kurotsuchi begins before Ogata can raise his voice. “The other two are clan, they’re just waiting for a chance to blame it on us. I can’t read the Jounin Commander, but he’s close to Hatake.”

And _this_ is why she would make a good kage – quick wit, good study, a decent judge of character and not afraid to render a verdict. If Shizuka will manage to beat the finer points of politics into her head over the next years she can slap the hat on her and go back to her desk in the mountain.

“I agree, Shizuka-sama. Councilman Murakami seems the least inclined to believe in our innocence, while you might be able to win the woman over still. Both Hatake and Shiranui maintain a low profile. They try to discourage unfounded rumors and prevent civil unrest.”

She nods at Ogata. He has been a jounin for seventeen years and with the border patrol for eleven of those. His sense for politics is keen enough that he would have noticed any major discrepancies in the behavior of the Konoha elders or the Hokage.

“What is the situation in Konohagakure?” She turns her head to look at Kurotsuchi again. “I won’t presume they took the news well.”

“No, they didn’t,” the kunoichi agrees, making a displeased sound. “There is… discontent. Nobody dared to treat us with outright hostility, but especially the older ones, those who survived the Third War, always had an eye on us and the Kusa-nin. Followed us through the whole village. They wanted our heads on spikes and yours right next to them, can’t even blame the bastards for it.”

Ogata remains silent in agreement.

“Tell me of the survivor,” she finally says. It’s the question Shizuka has been dreading since she first got the news that Akira didn’t die in the attack. _Let her be alive, let her still have her arms and legs, let her not be a brain damaged, drooling shadow of her former self_. She isn’t sure what she’ll do if Akira didn’t make it as well, if all of them are dead.

_You’ll get her sword and you’ll put it through whoever put theirs through Tsunade_.

“Alive,” Ogata confirms and Shizuka almost sighs, almost uses her hand to steady herself on the frame of the window. _Alive_. Only the memory of how she collapsed in her office stops her from reaching out to affirm for herself that his words are true.

“You saw her?” The question is delivered sharper than necessary, but she can’t restrain herself fast enough to prevent the slip of tongue.

“Iwasa Yayoi, the Kusa-medic who treated her, did,” Kurotsuchi answers for him, pulling Shizuka’s attention off the jounin. “She’d woken up once on the evening before we left. Iwasa said that she took permanent damage to her digestive system but will make a full recovery otherwise.”

It’s good that they can’t see her face because right now the relief has to be obvious in her expression.

“I see,” she says simply. “Ogata, dismissed.”

He doesn’t linger but _shunshin_ ’s out of the room and back into the inn with a mumbled salute. They will leave before sunrise, Shizuka knows Kurotsuchi well enough for that, and so she wants to grant the man as much rest has he can get.

Her steps are soundless when she approaches Kurotsuchi. The other woman doesn’t back up, doesn’t move as much as a finger, makes no sound, but still the Tsuchikage can feel her tense up when she stops only a foot away from the other kunoichi – underneath all the bravado Kurotsuchi of Iwagakure knows that Meian Shizuka is a dangerous woman to be alone with in the dark.

“Himaru is in charge until you return,” she informs her. For once there is no outward reaction from Kurotsuchi at the name. “I do not know when I will be back. Keep both your eyes on the investigation, don’t play games with them. My messages will be directly delivered to you or through Seiji.”

Kurotsuchi’s takes a deep breath. “What are your orders in case of attack?”

_Raise hell on them_ , but she doesn’t have to tell her that. Actually there isn’t anything Shizuka _can_ tell the Third Tsuchikage’s granddaughter that she doesn’t know already. She was breed and raised for exactly this scenario, large-scale combat inside Rock Country.

“The hat will be on your head,” Shizuka tells her and puts her right hand on the other’s shoulder. Kurotsuchi flinches despite her training. “I trust you to know what to do.”

It’s an act of faith unlike her person, she knows that, but the situation demands trust. She needs to leave Iwagakure, and if she’ll have to entrust her village to another person it is Kurotsuchi. _She’ll die for Iwa, that’s more than you can say for yourself_.

The younger woman goes stock still.

“Shizuka, I-“

Whatever she is about to say is lost to the Tsuchikage, who feels a familiar tug at her navel, the words getting lost as the summoning begins to drag her away. Time is up.

 

~

 

The funeral will be held at the beginning of dusk, as has been the custom of the Senju since before the creation of Konohagakure. Traditionally the clan held the wake till the first rays of sunlight touched the grave at dawn, but Senju Tsunade was the last of her kin alive. Kazue doubts that Kato Shinzune is aware of the old ways.

She wonders if Uchiha Sasuke remembers. After the massacre they burnt his clansmen according to custom as well, a pyre higher than she had ever seen before, flames licking towards the sun greedily, just an hour past noon, when temperature was at its highest.

They had built Masato a pyre too, after they’d brought his body back from the front lines. It was the only formal occasion that she had ever been allowed the honor that should have been hers for years by then: the place closest to his burning remains, the heat of the roaring fire evaporating her tears before they could fall.

Today, even with a entire day to pass before their Fifth Hokage will be given back to the earth – _flesh to soil, bone to stone, blood to water_ – the whole population of Konohagakure is already wearing black.

It’s only them, the Hokage and his councilors, who are stuck in their formal regalia of white.

White is the color of the dead of the oldest people. In Iwa and Ishi and the nomad tribes of Suna it is sacrilege to wear any other color when mourning. She wonders if the Tsuchikage is from one of the old clans, though in the end it doesn’t matter what color the woman mocks them in.

“This is what we have,” Genma says and places two folders on the table between the Hokage and his elder council. Hatake motions for him to proceed with a lazy flick of his wrist.

The Jounin Commander opens the smaller of the folders and pulls out a picture of the Fourth Tsuchikage that clearly is out of a bingo book with how blurred it is around the edges. It shows her in half profile.

Meian Shizuka has the black hair most common in Iwa, a long face, the high cheekbones that mark the Rock Country nobility and eyes as blue as a clear summer’s sky. Part of her face is covered by a black mask and she easily towers over most of the other passerby in the background of the image. From what Kazue can see of her torso and neck she is also too thin for her height.

“Fourth Tsuchikage, Meian Shizuka, will turn 28 at the end of the year, born in Iwagakure no Sato to Meian Kenji and Reika,” he recites from the top of his head while opening the second folder.

Her wanted picture doesn’t look her age. Kazue would have guessed her to be in her early twenties, but maybe it is an older photo – bingo book entries usually become outdated when a ninja ascends to kage. No shinobi is stupid enough to openly offer money for the head of a head of state.

“She has two brothers, Meian Haku and Seiji, three and four and a half years younger respectively. Passed her genin exam at seven years old, was sent as a political envoy to Konoha to cement the Konoha-Iwa peace treaty after the Third War…”

“She was here? As a… political envoy?” Murakami interrupts, frowning.

“Political hostage,” Shirakawa supplies helpfully, not realizing that that isn’t what Yoshinori’s question is aimed at.

“We stopped taking political hostages after the Kyuubi attack.” His tone is sharp, but it has every reason to be. Kazue asks herself the exact same question and she doesn’t like the conclusion she comes to.

“The treaty was signed one and a half years before the attack,” she says, voicing what everyone else is thinking already. “They made her a genin at seven to send her off to Konoha.”

“The war was over and they took a _child_ …” Yoshinori almost growls, as close to true anger as Kazue has ever seen on his face.

_And we played along_. Unlike civilian hostages there was a long and tedious process associated with exchanging shinobi hostages. That’s part of the reason why the custom has been abandoned for over a decade, the other being that the knowledge of how to create full chakra seals has become almost lost with the fall of the Uzumaki.

If Iwa is to blame for making a seven-year-old a political, a _shinobi_ hostage however, then so is Konoha.

Using a child, a clan child, as a guarantee for a contract like this is a special kind of cruelty. There will never be a way to make up for the years lost in their education, for the ability to train and shape them into the kind of shinobi their village needs. After spending their formative years in another’s custody their loyalty will always be questioned.

“She knew,” Hatake says and all heads turn towards the Hokage. “They sent her to guilt-trip Minato, but turning her down would have made him look weak. She knew it. He knew it too.”

The Yondaime Hokage has been dead for so long that Kazue hardly thinks about his relation to Hatake Kakashi nowadays, or that to Genma who was the Fourth’s bodyguard throughout most of the war – the boy looks guilty when their eyes meet, and yes he should be.

_No order is an excuse to do wrong by my village_ , Katsu had said.

“Namikaze slaughtered a quarter of their force by himself, he didn’t need to accept child hostages to prove his strength,” Murakami shoots back, an unhappy frown on his face.

Nothing else is said after that for more than a minute. Hatake knows better than to try and defuse the situation by attempting to lie to their faces and his council knows that it isn’t within their power to force the Hokage to share whatever knowledge it is he wants to keep hidden.

Finally Genma clears his throat. Murakami motions for him to continue with his report with an impatient wave of his hand.

“After the Kyuubi attack she was sent to Enko to be fostered at the daimyo’s court for the remainder of the five years stipulated in the contract and then returned to Iwagakure at age twelve.”

“What happened to the other hostages?”

Maybe there is no connection between any of them, maybe they never saw each other again, maybe most of them are dead already. She doesn’t trust a _maybe_ however, not when Meian Shizuka is the most likely suspect in the murder of their Fifth Hokage.

“There were seven others,” Genma replies and shuffles the papers around until he has found the one with the information on the other Konohagakure envoys. “All three Kiri-nin died in the attack: one was buried underneath a building, the other two sustained lethal injuries while protecting civilians. The two Suna-nin were returned to Sand for a reasonable amount of money. The sole Kumo-nin was declared missing. The Kusa-nin was also sent to the capital but returned home a year later. She died in a coup against her brother, the reigning leader of Kusagakure at the time, shortly after.”

Two survivors then, not counting the Tsuchikage and the missing Kumo shinobi. The information won’t lead them anywhere. Suna and Iwa were never close and unfortunately they can’t-

“Who were they?” Shirakawa suddenly asks. He wrinkles his brow when he sees the questioning looks directed his way. “The Kiri-nin who died protecting civvies. Who were they?”

Murakami tsk’s, displeased by the delay, but thankfully doesn’t comment otherwise.

“They were…” Genma begins and then pauses for a second. “Hozuki Kangetsu, twenty-one years old, died while attempting to curb a fire in a local bakery, and Terumii Takara, thirty-four years old, died escorting civilian children to a shelter.”

“Can’t say we didn’t give them enough reasons to hate us,” Murakami eventually says when no one else voices an opinion. It’s a crude reply, even to Kazue who spent most of the Second War slaughtering Suna-nin at Nagare, though that doesn’t make it any less true.

If they hadn’t been sealed completely… her gaze meets Takuma’s and there is a clear reprimand in his grey eyes. _We took their chakra and their homes, and still they were willing to die for us_. She nods. He is right in that. Perhaps Uzumaki Naruto stands correct and the Will of Fire isn’t limited to Fire shinobi.

This time nobody needs to tell Genma to continue.

“This is where our personal records end,” he admits and exchanges the bigger for the smaller folder. “She was promoted to chuunin at age fourteen after the first ever tournament held in Taki. I don’t have to tell you how that ended…”

Seventeen dead civilians, two dead Kusa jounin and a 1,000,000 ryo bounty on Kuroda Rei’s head. Kazue wasn’t there to witness it, but it must have been one hell of a hunt.

“Jounin promotion at age sixteen, which is when she vanished from any official records so Intelligence assumes that it correlates with her full-time involvement in the Iwa Black Ops. It’s been reported by various inside sources that she was Black Ops Commander at her inauguration as Tsuchikage, almost one and a half years ago, but we can’t confirm when exactly she received the position.”

“What about her genin team?” Shirakawa asks, leaning forward in his chair. It is his first question on the actual topic of the discussion, which is unusual for him.

“Nothing special.” Genma shrugs. “A jounin-sensei and two genin a year older than her, all male. The teacher is now retired. One of the boys lost a foot in the exam and became a mildly famous painter, the other is still in the corps.”

There are too many dead ends. The Tsuchikage’s adult life might has well be one gaping black hole in the folder, it wouldn’t make much of a difference – and while there is a connection to Konohagakure, it makes no sense. Tsunade had left the village by the time the girl stepped into it. If this was revenge it should have died with Minato or be directed at Kakashi, not a Sannin who had been absent from her village for well over a decade.

It all comes down to the one question Tsunade was never willing to answer.

“Why did they meet?” Kazue asks the silent room. She takes the bigger folder on Meian Shizuka’s childhood and browses through it. “It wasn’t a social visit. Three times a year, like clockwork. What was the reason?”

“I asked Masamori Akira that, too.” Hatake’s face isn’t its usual, unreadable mask, half-covered by black cloth, but instead shows fatigue and even a shimmer of sadness beneath the dark grey of his eyes. “She wouldn’t tell me.”

_Tsuande didn’t trust you._ It is a hard pill to swallow, knowing that your predecessor as Hokage didn’t trust you enough to confide their personal agenda to you.

“A Hokage’s word is law,” Takuma stresses. “She can’t refuse you.”

They are getting sidetracked, but by now it’s too late. Kazue can see it in the man’s eyes, he is a dog who has found a bone and won’t give it up without a fight. Equality matters too much to him, both in front of and in the back of the law.

“ _Every_ Hokage’s word is law,” Murakami corrects. There it is again, the age-old quarrel between the clans and those shinobi born of civilians, the distinction between loyalty that is earned and loyalty that is inherent and the question which of those precedes the other.

She expected that it would come to this one day: split loyalties.

“Hatake-sama is the acting Hokage and Senju-sama is dead. Referring to an order given by her as a means to defy an order given by him is preposterous at best and bordering on treason at the worst.”

Murakami snorts. “No loyalty given to one Hokage precedes the loyalty to another. They are of equal rank and deserving of equal deference. An acting Hokage is tied to the words of his predecessors as if they were his own, bound to fulfill their vows as if he had given them. Saying that any of our shinobi owns more loyalty to Hatake-sama than to Senju Tsunade is ridiculous.”

The two councilors stare at each other fiercely from opposite sides of the table while the other three occupants of the room watch in silence.

As the Jounin Commander, standing beneath in rank to both the Hokage and his advisors, Genma does not have any right to speak in this discussion. Hatake himself on the other could voice his opinion, but is in a precarious situation. He cannot pick a side without antagonizing a huge part of his shinobi force, which is exactly why Namikaze Minato in his short time as Yondaime sidestepped the question with incredible skill every time it was brought up before him.

“We can’t value the dead the same way as the living,” Shirakawa counters. “They can’t amend their views when new information is presented and they can’t learn of mistakes made after their time. Some grudges best stay dead with those who held them.”

“None of that makes an order given invalid, however. It has always been at the discretion of each of our shinobi individually whether or not they decide to obey an order given by a dead Hokage over that of a living one.”

Shirakawa looks at Murakami as if he is an idiot, a question of the other man’s intelligence clear in his grey eyes. Murakami’s gaze on the other hand is nothing short of disdainful.

“Do you really wanna bet the possible solution of Senju-sama’s murder on personal discretion?” Shirakawa finally asks, exasperated, throwing his hands in the air.

“Did you once consider that there might be a _reason_ the woman can’t tell us why they went to Iwagakure?” Murakami retorts, voice icy.

They both have a point, but in fighting as they currently do they completely ignore that of the other – Kazue wants to tell them to quit quarrelling like children and open their eyes. There isn’t a solution to their argument, hasn’t been since the Sandaime stepped down and Namikaze Minato became Hokage.

“Maybe we should consider,” she interrupts them and is rewarded by both glares being directed at her person instead. “That she remains silent out of personal loyalty to Tsunade. The other three died for Senju-sama without question and I got the impression she would have too, if we hadn’t forced her back from the brink. The Godaime selected her guards for a reason. Discreetness would have been one of those.”

“You don’t think an order will make her speak?” Hatake asks, lounging in his seat as if he is bored by the conversation.

“Do you, Hokage-sama?”

She inclines her head at Hatake, deferential but also with a hint of a challenge showing in the tilt of her neck. _You rule this village boy, not your councilors. You might as well act like it._

Suddenly there is a dangerous gleam in his black eyes. “No, I don’t, truth be told… if I would bring this matter to vote, what would your vote be, Uchiha-sama?”

_Uchiha-sama_. One word and there is rage simmering beneath the surface of her calm exterior, threatening to overwhelm the cool façade, the controlled expression on her face.

It’s all she ever wanted and all she never got crumpled up into a ball of emotions that twists and coils in her gut. Ryosuke gave her what was in his power to give. _Honorary clan member_. It isn’t the same, not when they fought for years for recognition of their status. Fiancée to the possible head of the Uchiha Clan – fiancée to the _dead_ possible head of the Uchiha Clan – unfortunately is not a title one can style themselves.

“Rokudaime-sama.” This time she bows, as formally as the table will allow. “I would abstain and you would have the chance to replace me with a more reasonable advisor.”

Kazue serves Konoha above all others. If Hatake Kakashi thinks she will bend at his whim, will submit to him solely because he commands her, then she will make a fool out of him in front of everyone who wants to see.

_I will never be owned again. Not by you, not by anyone._

The room is dead silent. Takuma and Yoshinori have forgotten their argument, all attention on their Hokage. Their faces are disapproving, which she didn’t expect, while Genma only has eyes for her, a certain look of awe in his dark eyes that reminds her of the first time she killed a man in front of his father.

“I see,” Hatake finally mutters. Then the corners of his eyes crinkle abruptly and the outline of a smile shows beneath the cloth of his mask.

“No agreement on the matter has been reached, therefore the state of the law will remain as it is as of now. Masamori will be questioned about her motives for withholding information,” he tells them and then takes a look at the clock on the left wall. “Tomorrow.”

Noon passed an hour ago, Kazue realizes in surprise.

“The investigation squad is scheduled for briefing in five minutes,” Shirakawa informs them, in case anyone has forgotten. “I advise we adjourn any further discussion on Meian Shizuka until after our talks with both Masamori and the Tsuchikage herself.”

“Agreed,” Murakami concurs. Kazue nods shortly. The Hokage seems lost in thought for a moment, but then also hums his agreement.

Genma puts the folders away into one of the sealed cabinets in the back of room in exchange for another folder that contains the basic information of their selected squad and their mission parameters – the Sixth really needs a secretary. With the Jounin Commander gone to Rock soon _somebody_ needs to be up-to-date on paperwork.

A knock sounds at the door and after a huff of permission from the Hokage one of the chunnin on duty at the front desk opens the doors of the office.

“The members of the investigation squad, Hokage-sama.”

They enter by order of rank.

Hyuuga Yuuto comes first, moving just a bit stiffly without his Anbu uniform. He bows to them, a perfect curve of his spine, but his eyes linger on Kazue for a second longer than strictly necessary. Aburame Shinobu follows him with a respectful distance, glasses tugged into the front pocket of his vest, displaying the dark, beetle-like eyes of his clan.

Nomura Tenten bows as well, but her eyes linger too, though it is on the Hokage. He returns her gaze silently but with interest, giving her a once-over Kazue knows Murakami will disapprove of without having to turn and check.

Yamanaka Ino is a contrast to all of them: hair as bright as the sun and eyes as blue as a cloudless sky, a feminine silhouette of plum and black under her too-big jounin flak jacket. She attracts the eye in more ways than one, which admittedly distracts quite well from the calculating gaze of her beautiful eyes.

Kazue wonders if Nomura and Aburame know that she is Anbu.


	6. Part 1: Chapter 6 - The Funeral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay, life got in the way of me getting this chapter published... 
> 
> The first main characters are finally meeting up! Shizuka doesn't really want to be in Konoha, Akira is a mess and everyone is suspicious of almost everyone else. Tension is high and there's a lot of emotion envolved on all sides, which makes the being suspicious kinda worse. Also features Konohagakure canon characters (who aren't Kakashi) getting some screen time because yes they still exist and Shizune deserves some love.

_Nineteen years._

Ninteen years ago Shizuka left Konohagakure through the southern gate – the main gate – which had been miraculously undamaged in a village a quarter reduced to rubble. Now she approaches it on foot again, like she did the last time, though this time there are no retainers, no delegates and shinobi.

Now she’s the Tsuchikage and she comes alone.

She sent Kiba back to Aomori some miles back to not provoke unnecessary hostility. It’s better that she walks this last part unaccompanied, clearly visible and at a sedated pace that gives all parties involved the time to prepare for her arrival.

The Hokage is waiting for her beneath the gate, like Namikaze Minato did all those years ago. Instead of a scrawny boy in black and a hardened shinobi in white however there are three elders flanking the Rokudaime.

They all wear black. Shizuka knows that it’s the preferred color of mourning in most nations these days, but still the custom feels repellant to her on an instinctual level.

You mourn in _white_ , pure of soul and clear of heart. Black is a shinobi color, the color of killers, lies, betrayal. How can they stand there, in the memory of a person they honored and cherished and wear all black? The thought leaves the taste of ash in her mouth.

It’s easier this way at least, easier to _not_ draw the comparison between her two arrivals, not fall into the trap that is remembering even more dead than she needs to. _Tsunade_. The ceremony will be for her and she won’t do the former Hokage the disrespect of mingling the unexpected grief she feels at her death with the one she still harbors over other people.

_I wish you could’ve met your father, Keiji._

“Hokage-sama,” she greets Hatake Kakashi with a slight nod of her head. He looks… well, older of course, but also healthier and less dangerous, thought he last is obviously a trap.

“Tsuchikage-sama,” replies and gives her the same nod. “Konohagakure welcomes you.”

There isn’t much else to say, really, and so the Rokudaime steps back, making space for his elders to introduce themselves – Shizuka could never quite grasp the necessarily for an elder council in a Hidden Village, but Konoha has always been particular when it comes to traditions, more so than any other of the major villages.

Her eyes move to the man on the left first, a short-haired, slender shinobi whose eyes are as grey as his hair. There is nothing about him that stands out, which leads her to file him as Shirakawa, the civilian-born of the councilors.

Beside him stands a taller man with the rigid posture of a clan child, born and raised to be a ninja. His gaze is downright hostile, hard brown eyes trying to stare her down. _He can try_ , Shizuka thinks, a tad amused, and eyes him up from his ninja boots over the small belly he has gained to the salt-and-pepper hair that’s tied back at the back of his head.

Off to the right, removed from the other councilors in a way that might be intentional, stands the sole woman of the Hokage’s group.

Shizuka almost raises an eyebrow. _A Hyuuga_.

Neither Kurotsuchi nor Ogata decided to mention that little detail and it intrigues her. A member of such a prominent clan on the council; surely some of the other great clans of Konoha must have been displeased with that choice.

“Meian Shizuka,” she introduces herself as if the elders don’t very well know who she is. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

It’s nothing more than a pretence to get them to introduce themselves in return, but sometimes an obvious strategy is the easiest way to achieve results. In this case the council members don’t even have the option of refusing her.

“Shirakawa Takuma, pleased to met you.” The man doesn’t even sound insincere, but then again Kurotsuchi said that he’s the harmless one. So far Shizuka agrees with her assessment.

“Murakami Yoshinori,” the other elder says. “Likewise.”

His eyes tell another story however, a story that ends with her head separated from the rest of her body – maybe he’d smile then at least. The grim expression he currently wears makes the man look years above what she guesses is his actual age.

“Kazue,” the woman declares at last, her white gaze only just more welcoming than Murakami’s.

 _A clanless Hyuuga on the Hokage council, what are you doing, Hatake?_ Shizuka turns her head back to the man in question, but of course his face is completely emotionless beneath the cloth of his black mask. He was hard to read as a teenager, but now it feels worse. Maybe because he is older, or maybe because she is.

Back then, at seven, the world was so _easy_. It was easy to spit at the feet of Namikaze, traitor’s get with those gullible blue eyes, it was easy to hate him, easy to hate Hatake and the Sannin too, because they were there and they were _enemy_ and her own father had just sold her to them.

It was easy until Takara told her Water Country fairy tales, until Nobu started to read books to her, until Uzumaki Kushina took her out for ramen, until Tamiko introduced her to her garden, until Yua played puppet shows just because she knew that Shizuka loved them, until Jiraiya of the Sannin grinned that hollow, broken grin and dared her to race him-

“I will show you to your quarters,” the Sixth Hokage interrupts her thoughts.

Shizuka is grateful for it. She doesn’t know how well she will handle to be back inside Konohagakure, even when the village was rebuild twice over since she last set foot into it.

“Thank you, Hokage-sama.” She means it, though none of them would believe her if she told them so. “It was a pleasure meeting you, honored elders. I am looking forward to meeting you again tomorrow, after the funeral.”

They make various, half-hearted declarations of agreement, but Shizuka is too tired to pay much attention. Making the journey from Iwagakure all the way here in one and a half days didn’t allow for more than an hour of sleep on Kiba’s back sometime last night – it doesn’t help that a part of her mind is nearly a smile southeast, focused on the warm, familiar aura that proves that Akira is alive, is well, at least in body.

There is the burning need to see her with her own eyes of course, but that can wait until after Hatake has escorted her to her temporary lodgings.

For a second she fears that they will walk, her in white and him in black, through crowded streets on the afternoon of the funeral of the last Senju, but thankfully the Hokage knows better and takes to the rooftops. Shizuka follows gladly.

“Two of my elders think you had Tsunade killed,” he mutters when they run beside each other, low enough for the wind to carry it beyond the ears of any possible eavesdroppers. “The last one is undecided as of yet. Unless the investigation will provide tangible proof that Iwa had no hand in her murder I expect them to sway him.”

He doesn’t have to say anymore. _Give me proof that you didn’t do it or they’ll demand your head_. Shizuka gets the message.

Tsunade was incredibly popular in the whole of Fire country – your forces watching on as you put yourself back together after being bisected while maintaining to heal hundreds of people at the same time definitely had something to do with it. They loved her.

“I once told her that it was her fault that people kept dying for her,” she admits in a whisper. “I lashed out at her, somehow thinking that hurting her would make _me_ hurt less. I don’t know how many times I told her to just get it over with and finally bite the dust.”

Hatake gives her a sharp look.

“And still you didn’t kill her.” He sounds almost sorry when saying it.

“Maybe I did it,” she replies, lips forming into a mad grin. “I had the means, I had the motive, what should have stopped me? Honestly, if I’d wanted to kill her I would have gone about it no different than they did. I made bloody heads on sticks of Kiri’s best Hunter-nin, nobody would put killing a kage past me.”

They jump down once they have passed the last row of buildings and a large expanse of field opens below them, enclosed by nothing but a wooden fence.

Shizuka knows where they are, of course. Even two near annihilations of Konohagakure later the Senju clan compound is marked by verdant grass covering the gentle slope of the hill in the far north-east of the village.

The buildings are obviously new, but made mostly from wood in the same technique that was common in most older houses inside Konoha. The main house alone has a foundation of stone, reaching three floors up with the typical semicircular Fire Country roof.

“The compound currently has four permanent residents,” Hatake tells her and points first to one of the smaller buildings right beside the main house. “Kazamatsuri Rina and her daughters Hanari and Moegi live there. Rina was a cousin to Tsunade through her uncle on the Senju side. Kato Shizune lives in the main building, she offered for you to stay with her.”

 _Clever_. Since Tsunade’s adopted daughter volunteered to house her, nobody will be able to claim insult with her staying at the Senju residence. Who better to watch the enemy in their midst than the student and daughter of the woman she allegedly murdered?

It’s a slow walk up the hill and Shizuka spends it amazed at the view of the village the compound offers.

“I thought about it,” the Hokage admits as they reach the front door.

She doesn’t ask. There are over a dozen reasons for her to have killed Tsunade, and while most of those sound credible even under scrutiny none come close to the only actual reason she had to want the Godaime dead.

For the first time this afternoon she seeks eye contact with the man. It’s disconcerting to see Hatake with two perfectly normal eyes when she got used to him always having the one hidden underneath his headband – even at seven she knew about the scar, about the Sharingan he was hiding. He was the scary scarecrow boy she pretended she wasn’t afraid of.

“What brought you around?”

He looks from her to the village and back.

“We raised you,” he says and smiles behind his mask at the blank look on her face. “For five years Konoha raised you. It made you hate _them_ more than us.”

It’s true. Onoki and her father where the ones to send her off to Konoha. Declining such a prestigious hostage would have made Namikaze look like an idiot. What should he have told them? _We have the same eyes, I can’t look at her?_ She knows better than to blame him for Iwa picking a petty fight after they’d already lost the war.

“What?” she asks and can’t stop from laughing out loud. “You think I didn’t murder Tsunade out of _gratitude_ for you caring for me?”

The Hokage shakes his head. “No, that would be idiotic.”

Shizuka frowns, unsure what to make of Hatake’s sudden serene mood. She struggles with fitting together the broody teenager of her memories with the grounded man standing in front of her.

“The ceremony begins at dusk in front of the Hokage Tower,” he continues, ignoring their earlier conversation. “You, me and the Kazekage will lead the procession to the Senju forest. The wake will last till dawn, though you aren’t expected to attend. Tsunade’s last will will be read to her closest of kin at 11:00.”

She almost asks after Uzumaki Naruto, but thinks better of it. If she’ll be lucky the boy, _the world’s savior_ as they call him, won’t want to have anything to do with her. That would be the best outcome for both of them, actually.

“Later, then,” she bids goodbye to the Sixth Hokage, who has vanished in a swirl of leaves an instant later.

 

~

 

Akira stares at the wall of her hospital room with empty eyes. Instead of off-white cement she sees Eiko’s face, dark blue hair framing her round face beautifully, lying on the blooming fields of the Senju compound with Kuchi lounging beside her casually and Yakumo sitting off to the side with his back to a tree and a book in his hands.

A knock at the door makes her startle, her hand twitching to her hip, attempting to grab a sword that isn’t there.

“Masamori-san?” one of the nurses asks, carefully poking her head through the door. She looks at Akira with both pity and concern in her light brown eyes. _Eiko’s eyes were almost the same color_.

Carefully she wills her hands to stop shaking, folds them in her lap demurely and turns her head towards the woman. She forces a smile to her lips that feels all wrong, crooked and ragged around the edges. It’s entirely false, but somehow manages to be convincing enough for the nurse to not immediately call Shizune or Haruno to the scene.

“I will accompany you to the funeral in half an hour,” she informs her. “Do you need any help getting dressed?”

Her dark eyes wander over to the pile of clothes lying at the foot of the hospital bed. Akira eyes them blankly, not giving away how repulsed she is at the mere sight. They gave her _civilian clothes_ , as if she’s some invalid, no longer worthy of proper shinobi gear.

“I’ll manage,” she mutters, not taking her eyes off the clothes.

The nurse gets the hint – or maybe she just doesn’t know how to deal with a broken ninja, she’s a civilian herself after all – and leaves with a reminder to call if she needs aid.

With her arms bare from their usual bandages the black ink of the storage seal is a stark contrast to her pale skin. Nobody told her what happened to her sword and Akira was too much of a coward to ask Shizune about it, so now she stares at the dark lines on her skin, wondering how much of herself is left inside the seal.

She remembers the battle, but it’s a twisted memory. Tsunade and Eiko and Yakumo and Kuchi, the face of the kunoichi she cut with her blade, the blue flames on the hands of the assassin’s leader… those images are clear in her head, _too clear_ , while she still fails to remember details she knows she _should_ know. What happened to her sword? How did she get the scar on the back of her head?

Her chakra is even lower than usual, but it’s easy to summon just enough of it to her fingertips to open the seal.

A few kunai drop onto the mattress followed by her scarf and a set of poisoned senbon. Her wakizashi falls into her left hand effortlessly, years of training having honed her muscle memory to the point where gripping it is as natural as breathing to her.

One slash through the air reveals that she has indeed gotten weaker on her forced bed rest.

 _As you should have_ , Akira thinks. She failed Tsunade, failed her team, on the height of her strength, so what right does she have to it? Maybe that’s what she deserves, to became as weak as she really is, to be exposed as a fraud.

The thought echoes in her head. She looks at the civilian clothes again.

Being a ninja is everything she knows to be. She didn’t want to learn how to run a shop at eight, or at five, or any time in her life. She never wanted to be a civilian, to life a mundane life. She always knew that she could be _better_ ; she begged Munenori-sensei to teach her, begged Tsunade to take her because Akira wasn’t ever meant to be a mere resident of a Great Village.

 _What if I was wrong?_ She’s been thinking it since the first time she woke up in this godsforsaken hospital. _What if someone else, someone better, could have saved them?_

Suddenly the walls of the room are overwhelming, crowding her, making her gasp for breath, her heart hamming against her chest, head swimming. She needs to go, to get out of here. _Now_.

Akira doesn’t remember consciously drawing on her chakra, but all of a sudden she is standing in one of the guest bedrooms, _her bedroom_ , in the Senju main house. It smells of poison and leather and sword polish. Her cloak is still hanging by the wall as she left it two weeks ago. A faint layer of dust covers her bookshelf.

Her knees give out from under her and she hits the wooden floor hard.

There are tears in the corners of her eyes, though she doesn’t know if it’s from the onslaught of memories or the way her stomach lurches at the abrupt movement.

She wants to stay here, on the floor, or to climb into her bed and hide under the covers that smell of _home_ , but Akira knows that she can’t. They’ll burry Tsunade today, in less than an hour, and the others in a private ceremony tomorrow. She’s the last one now. She _needs_ to be there – they would’ve come to her funeral too, no matter how much it hurt.

The second set of armor sits untouched in her wardrobe: black pants, standard issue top, gloves, shoes, chest armor, armguards and ninja pouches. Everything is there, even some spare bandages she always keeps – kept? – around in case the current ones get torn.

Despite her weakened state it’s easy to rip the hospital gown from her body. Her hands have started to shake again however, and badly at that. Akira gingerly places her wakizashi on the nightstand, steadying herself on the wall because her legs are trembling as well now.

In the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door a haggard woman with wild hair and dark circles under her eyes looks back at her.

It’s hard to dress by herself. The bandages around her stomach limit her movement and even without them she couldn’t bend as she wants to. Her new scar is taunt and tender, making her stifle a pained moan when she slips into the armor. Putting on underwear and pants is almost worse, because it means that she has to lean forward, which pulls at the new skin in a way that makes her instantly nauseous again.

Akira almost falls down on the bed when it’s done, taking deep, even breaths to calm her heart rate. It helps, but she needs minutes before she can move again, albeit slowly.

Putting on the glove and bandaging her left arm is simple enough now that she doesn’t have to concentrate on remaining on her feet. She straps the armguards on last after she has attached the pouch to her belt. Then she lies back on the bed, exhausted.

She wants her mask.

She wants the cool, rigid porcelain to cover her skin, to hide her face, her emotions, to bottle up all the pain and push it away behind the wall of being a soldier. _Nanashi_. She wants to be a _Nameless_ again, one of Tsunade’s elite bodyguards without a face, a back story or a need for a consciousness.

Sitting up is a struggle, getting to her feet is close to agony. Still Akira belts the wakizashi at its proper place on her left hip, her fingers ghosting over the sheath for a moment in an attempt to calm herself.

From now on she’ll have to live without the mask again. The thought almost paralyzes her with fear.

In less than an hour she’ll have to stand at Tsunade’s casket – she’s still alive and forever beautiful in her mind, a cuddly drunk and a bitch when hungover, second to none in her healing jutsu but with much to be desired in her bedside manner, gorgeous and deadly, the only person who’d ever wholeheartedly believed that Akira could be _more_.

When Tsunade is buried, when Eiko, Yakumo and Kuchi are buried, what will happen to her then? Who’ll she be, then?

With their memory so fresh in her head Akira can’t remember how it was _before_ , not really. She was lonely then, lonely and lost. _Alone_. She doesn’t want to go back.

The first step is the hardest, but it gets easier with every subsequent one. Her breathing evens out by habit, too ingrained into her for her body to forget it over two mere weeks of bed rest.

Mechanically she picks her coat from the hanger, throws it over and gathers her chakra.

The Shunshin comes easy to her, easier maybe than it should have with such low reserves. One, two, three big steps across Konohagakure and suddenly she’s standing at the bottom of the Hokage’s Tower, where a large crowd of black-clad figures has already gathered. One more step puts her on top of the tower, her chakra signature still keyed to the building’s security barriers.

An honor guard of five Anbu is keeping watch, one at every point of the compass with the last one standing straight and unmoving beside the Godaime Hokage’s coffin.

They notice her before she arrives of course, but none of them makes a move to stop her. _They know who you are_ , a voice whispers in her head and really it’s not hard to guess with all the others _gone_. There’s only Akira left, with a scar over her abdomen and a hole in her heart.

Her hand has reached out before she’s aware of what she is doing.

For a moment the Anbu leader just looks at her, brown eyes big in the hollows of their mask. They don’t move however, just stare at her, her fresh uniform, the wild hair and haggard face. Akira doesn’t want to know what her own eyes look like.

Slowly they untie the chakra thread holding their beautiful mask in place. The swirl on their forehead reminds her of Tsunade’s seal, the color an exact match for their dark purple hair.

Without a word the woman – Akira knows her, has seen her before, more than once, but her mind is so empty, _hollow_ , with all who mattered gone from it – puts the mask into her outstretched hand. It’s a standard Anbu issue, heavier than the one she used to wear, the one that broke off just beneath her nose after a vicious kick to the face.

She trades places with the woman silently. A rough, calloused hand grabs her shoulder in passing, anchoring her to the present by the sheer reality of feeling another’s touch. Akira _breathes_.

Then it’s her watch.

It’s so simple to sink back into the role that’s been hers for over five years now. She guards the coffin like she’d have guarded the woman, alert, with a practiced stance and open eyes.

People arrive. A young man with dark red hair who her mind indentifies as the Kazekage, an ally. A man with grey hair and sad eyes, the Hokage. A woman in an Iwa-white kimono with her long dark hair braided at her back, the Tsuchikage.

There’s no emotion attached when she looks at any of their faces from behind the mask. Her duty isn’t to them, it’s to Tsunade, to the memory of her and those three other people she called family in her head. After she has inspected and assessed them as non-threatening their presence becomes secondary to her Hokage’s remains.

Akira watches as the Sixth Hokage performs the first of the rituals intended to guide the dead into the afterlife with water from the spring in the Hokage mountain.

Only after he’s finished do the coffin bearers appear: Kazamatsuri Rina, her dark red hair glowing in the light of the setting sun, Kato Shizune, looking ten years too old, Haruno Sakura, her green eyes rimmed in red, and Uzumaki Naruto, a beacon of chakra that can’t ever be ignored.

The procession all the way from the tower to the Senju compound is a slow one. The kage lead the way, followed by the coffin. Then come the closest of relatives, which amounts to Rina’s two daughters who walk side by side, their hands clasped tightly. Akira is right behind them, the four Anbu following in formation behind her.

In their rear follow various high ranking ninja arranged according to their rank and seniority, the three members of the Konoha Council the foremost of them. Last are the civilians, an endless trail of bodies that both follows in their wake and lines the streets they are walking through.

They reach the Senju compound when the fields are basked in orange light, the wooden buildings shining as if set on fire by the last rays of the day’s sun.

Like a snake slithering through the grass the procession winds its way through the single street of the compound towards the ancient forest at the far end of the village. The trees here are old and reach almost as high as those surrounding the village, their trunks gnarled and leaves a brighter green than anywhere else in Fire Country.

Akira has never been this deep into the forest before, at the place where the Senju are buried. It’s a sacred site, usually not for the eyes of anyone outside the clan – a clan that died with Tsunade.

She watches the ceremony, but her gaze is empty, her eyes unseeing.

The last time she was in the Senju forest was to spar with Tsunade, to prove that she was worth keeping, that she deserved to be a ninja of Konohagakure.

By this point she doesn’t have any tears left, but the memory makes her heart clench still. She remembers her fascination, her _awe_ , at seeing the last Senju, the Great Slug Sannin Tsunade, fight. So much power contained in such a small body, hidden behind slim hands and a face prettier than she’d ever seen before.

 _You may be Tsunade of the Senju, but you can’t teach me who I am. You can’t decide how I die_. _I do_. She’d thrown the words at the Godaime as she’d put her katana clean through her, angry that the woman presumed to know her soul, outraged that she believed she could teach Akira what it meant to be _shinobi_.

 _It goes both ways_ , she thinks, dark eyes staring at the coffin laid out between the massive trees.

She was ready to lay down her life for Tsunade, to take a sword to the back, a punch to the face, a kick to the gut, to shield her from a fireball, a Lightning technique, a blade of wind. Dying for a woman, a kage, she admired would have been a good death. A meaningful death.

If they had the right to die for Tsunade however, then Tsunade also had the right to die for them. The thought feels alien, goes against the duty she was honor bound to fulfill.

When Akira lifts her eyes from the coffin, torches are being set up around the clearing. The ceremony is over, the kage standing off to one side while Shizune and Rina accept condolences from an influx of villagers – both civilian and shinobi – on the other side of the open space.

Suddenly she can’t breathe anymore behind the stony Anbu mask, gasps for air as if some invisible force is choking her. Her lungs burn, her heart starts to race in her chest. The mask feels heavy, is dragging her down towards the forest floor, and Akira rips it off with her right hand in panic, tearing the chakra-induced string with pure strength.

Her vision is swimming and she staggers, grasping for something to hold on to.

A cool hand seizes her left arm and then a shoulder is pushed into her, keeping her upright. Her hand scrambles for purchase and she finds it in the collar of a kimono. The cloth is soft, softer than it has any right to be.

Bright, chakra blue eyes stare back at her when she looks up.

Shizuka is taking most of her weight, her free arm sneaking around Akira’s back gently to secure her grip on her body – she wants to utter a thanks, but her voice fails her. Instead a rough cough leaves her lips, followed by another, more violent one. Her limbs are shaking again, as if she was running for two days straight without any sleep. 

The Tsuchikage is stronger than she looks, keeping her up effortlessly while she lets her clench her fist helplessly in the folds of her intricate, _priceless_ funeral attire.

Akira wants to run, to wrest herself free of the hold the other kunoichi has on her and bolt into the forest, to hide between the age-old trees and to roll up into a ball on the forest floor. It’s _too much_ , Tsunade’s face in her mind, pale and bloodless and almost decapitated from the neck down.

She tries to clamp down on the fear that wants to override any clear thought. This isn’t the time or place and she was trained better than that. _Pull yourself together girl, are you a kunoichi or what?_

“So-,” her voice breaks after the first syllable, mouth dry as the Great Desert, but she tries again. “Gimme… pouch, so- soldier pills.”

Shizuka moves in, comes closer so their chests are almost touching, and Akira wants to reel back on instinct. She feels crowded, the other body too close to hers, and bile rises in her throat at the warmth radiating from the woman, but she endures.

There’s a touch, only one, at her hip. A moment later calloused fingers pry her lips apart forcefully and push two soldier pills into her mouth. Shizuka works her throat, presses the tips of her fingers into her skin painfully, makes her swallow the pills despite her dry mouth and the vigorous urge to throw up whatever is left of her lunch.

“Water bottle,” someone says, but she doesn’t know who.

Her hand still clings to the back of Shizuka’s kimono, but the woman moves aside and she lets a man press a water bottle to her dry lips, drinks greedily from it – since when is she thirsty? It’s the Hokage, and when she looks up at him a pair of green eyes, a shade paler than the forest, meets hers over Hatake’s shoulder. _The Kazekage_. He looks sad.

The pills have begun to take effect already. Her legs stop shaking first, her heart rate becomes slower and finally Akira can properly breathe again.

The two men move away and when her vision clears it’s Tsunade’s coffin she’s looking at again. There are flowers all over it, white and yellow and green ones, the colors of the dead and the forest and the Senju.

“Let me…” she mumbles and swipes at Shizuka weakly with her right, but the woman batters her protest away easily. Her eyes move from Akira to the coffin, following her dark gaze.

She pulls her down with her, lowers the both of them to the forest floor in a controlled display of strength that she admires somewhere beneath the fog that clouds her mind. Akira grips the kimono harder, nauseas again at the movement.

Her head sags down like she’s a broken doll, too heavy to keep upright.

On the ground dirt and fallen leaves are clinging to the folds of the Tsuchikage’s white silk kimono. This close up she can see that there is a pattern in the weave, a barely visible motif of flowers. Irises, she thinks.

“Flesh to soil, bone to stone, blood to water,” she prays when she turns her eyes back to the coffin. _Just like Tsunade taught her_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, the end of Part One. The stage is set, the players are all there. From now on the plot will stop driving the story and leave room for the character to push the story instead - which makes things a wee bit more complicated


End file.
